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CANAAN 


BY 


GRACA ARANHA 


OF THE BRAZILIAN ACADEMY 


TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY 
MARIANO JOAQUIN LORENTE 


WITH A PREFACE BY 
GUGLIELMO FERRERO 





Boston 


THE Four Seas COMPANY 


1920 


Copyright, r920, by 


THe Four Seas CoMPANY 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT 
OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES 
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 


The Freach version of this work is protected in all countries which are members of the 
International Copyright Union, and the Portuguese original is protected in 
alicountries which are members of the International Copyright 
Union or the Pan-American Copyright Union 


First printing, January 
Second printing, January 
Third printing, January 


The Four Seas Press 


Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 


VS Ket fod 


Library 


PREFACE 


Amonc the American® cities that have rapidly developed 
on the Atiantic coast during the nineteenth century, Rio 
de Janeiro has a character all its own. You cannot com- 
pare it to Buenos Aires or New York. Built on a bay, 
the beauty of which can neither be imagined nor 
described, upon hills and mountains covered with 
immense, marvelous forests which form, among its 
houses, gardens of incomparable beauty, Rio de Janeiro 
is a gigantic city, full of life and animation. But you 
cannot see there the crowds, the bustle and the violent 
activity of other great American cities. It is the only 
American metropolis that seems to invite you, not to act, 
but to loaf, to think, and even to dream. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that this capital of a powerful federa- 
tion of extensive and rich states, though they are sparsely 
populated, should be the center of a flourishing intellec- 
tual life. Novelists, poets, critics, historians and 
philosophers—for the most part government employes— 
go thither and work, meeting from time to time at the 
Brazilian Academy. They foregather, between four and 
five in the afternoon, in a huge bookstore in the Rua 
Ouvidor. This bookstore belongs to the French firm of 

*Neediess to say, Signor Ferrero uses the terms ‘America’ and 
“American,” not with the narrow sense given these words in the 


United States, but meaning the whole American continent and 
whatever pertains thereto. 


1614102 


6 PREFACE 


Garnier, and the latest publications from Europe are 
received there every week. Stimulated by a cosmopoli- 
tan culture in which all shades of European intellectuality 
are represented, the literary production of Brazil has 
become quite considerable both as to quantity and 
quality. Naturally, all of it is not first class; but among 
mediocre works, such as are to be found in any litera- 
ture, Brazilian literature counts some productions which 
would honor any country in the old world. 

One of these works, and perhaps the most remarkable, 
is a novel; its title is “Canaan” and its author is Joseph 
Graca Aranha. The personality of the author, and the 
work itself, equally deserve the attention of cultivated 
people. Aranha, a writer and diplomat descended from 
an old family, truly represents the intellectual classes of 
the great American nations which Europe seems to have 
great difficulty in distinguishing from the crowd of noisy 
parvenus and newly-rich. His is an extremely fine mind, 
endowed with a remarkable force of intuition and on 
which all the cultures of Europe—French as well as Ger- 
man and English—have exerted their influence. He has 
not merely read and studied books, but has come into 
contact with life in some of the great problems of man- 
kind. He was one of the favorite disciples of Baron de 
Rio Branco—the famous Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
of the Confederation—and served for a long time in 
the office of that department at Rio de Janeiro. He 
accompanied Mr. Nabuco, as secretary, when the latter 
was sent to Rome in a mission to present before the 
king of Italy the case for Brazil in the boundary ques- 
tion with British Guiana of which the Italian monarch 
was chosen arbitrator. He was for some time Brazilian 


PREFACE 7 


Minister at Christiania and was afterwards appointed 
Plenipotentiary for his country at The Hague. This 
post he relinquished in November, 1914, and returned to 
Brazil where he was one of the leaders in the anti-German 
agitation which finally brought Brazil into line with the 
Allies and the United States. He, therefore, knows 
Europe and the two Americas, yet he has remained a 
thorough Brazilian, passionately fond of his country, its 
history, its natural beauties, its traditions. His duties 
as a diplomat and as a public functionary have not 
prevented him from writing many books, of which 
“Canaan” is the most beautiful. 

With such a thorough preparation as the author had, 
his book could not be merely a novel of individual 
psychology. “Canaan,” therefore, is more than that; it 
is a novel of contemporary America. Its characters live 
and act in the midst of an historical phenomenon which 
no writer, to my knowledge, had yet chosen as a subject 
for a work of art. This historical phenomenon is the 
great drama which is being acted on the other side of the 
Atlantic, in all the countries, north as well as south. It 
is the encounter of the races, the mixing of cultures, the 
disturbance caused in the social organization of all the 
American countries by the masses of men arriving 
from overcrowded Europe. The history of individuals 
has, therefore, in this volume a profound social and 
philosophic significance. A young German, disgusted 
with Europe and its old civilization—full of violences, 
lies and ill-concealed abominations—emigrates to Brazil, 
to the state of Espirito Santo, which is one of the most 
fertile in tropical Brazil. Everyone knows that in 
several states of Brazil there exist German colonies which 


8 PREFACE 


have preserved almost intact their language and national 
traditions, 

The young emigrant wants to settle in one of these 
colonies. The son of a college professor, and brought 
up in an idealistic and anarchistic philosophy, he seeks in 
the New World, in the midst of populations devoted to 
tilling the land, a simpler, more moral, more sincere, a 
freer and happier society than the one he has left behind 
in Europe. And the book begins with a description of his 
journey on horseback from Queimado to Porto do 
Cachoeiro, where he intends to obtain a piece of virgin 
forest in order to clear it and plant coffee. 

Those who have traveled in tropical America will not 
read without intense emotion the pages in which the 
Brazilian landscape is described with powerful and rich 
images. But the subtlety of the author’s psychological 
analysis is not inferior to the beauty of his descriptions. 
The young emigrant arrives; he obtains from the 
Brazilian official in charge of the distribution of land, the 
piece of virgin forest which he desires; he begins his new 
existence in a world which he believes to be young and, 
therefore, exempt from all the evils accumulated by 
history in the old civilizations. But little by little he 
discovers in this young world the cruelties, the lies and 
the immoralities which he believed he had left behind 
in the other hemisphere, when he expatriated himself; he 
finds the same narrowness and rigidity in the laws; the 
men of wealth and power exhibit the same tendency to 
abuse them; in their relations to each other, men display 
the same hypocrisy and the same spirit of egotism. 

The trial for infanticide of a young girl, wrongly 
accused, lets loose in the colony one of those floods of 


PREFACE 9 


delirious hate and collective cruelty which seem at times 
to rehabilitate the crime and the criminal that brought 
tHem forth. In the midst of the forests where he thought 
he would find the sweet calm of a pure and serene life, 
this idealistic philosopher is compelled to witness, heart- 
rent and helpless, the eternal drama of the justice of 
man seeking to purify the world by exciting the worst 
and most violent passions of which the human soul is 
capable. Gradually, the dreamer discovers in the coun- 
try he had thought young all the symptoms of a 
dying world: immense lands, exhausted for want of culti- 
vation; old families disappearing; traditions, the tradi- 
tions of old Brazil, lost in the avalanche of invading new 
races; the struggle of an old society, refusing to die, and 
a new society trying to occupy its place. 

The critics will judge the literary merits of this novel. 
As a literary amateur, I will point out among its qualities 
the beauty of its style and its descriptions, the purity of 
the psychological analysis, the depth of the thoughts and 
reflections of which the novel is full, and among its faults 
a certain disproportion between the different parts of the 
book and an ending which is too vague, indefinite and 
unexpected. But its literary qualities seem to me to be 
of secondary importance to the profound and incontro- 
vertible idea that forms the kernel of the book. Here in 
Europe, we are accustomed to say that modern civiliza- 
tion develops itself in America more freely than in 
Europe, for in the former country it has not to surmount 
the obstacle of an older society, firmly established, as is 
the case in the latter. Because of this, we call America 
“the country of the young,” and we consider the New 


10 PREFACE 


World as the great force which decomposes the old 
European social organization. 

But those who know America are perfectly well aware 
that such an opinion is but an illusion, due to distance. 
In Argentina, as in Brazil and in the United States, this 
civilization which we in Europe call “Americanism” and 
whose principal aim is to exploit extensive and sparsely 
populated territories, develops itself only at the expense 
of an older society, more conservative and more attached 
to traditions. Everywhere there is an old America 
struggling against a new one and, this is very curious, the 
new America, which upsets traditions, is formed above 
all by European immigrants who seek a place for them- 
selves in the country of their adoption, whereas the real 
Americans represent the conservative tendencies. Europe 
exerts on American society—through its emigrants— 
the same dissolving action which America exerts— 
through its novelties and its example—on the old civiliza- 
tion of Europe. The protagonist of “Canaan” says so, 
at one time, in a beautiful passage which expresses the 
philosophy of the whole book: “It is probable that our 
fate will be to transform this country from top to bottom, 
to substitute with another civilization all the culture, 
religion and traditions of a people. It is a new conquest, 
slow, dour, peaceful in its means, but terrible in its 
ambitious schemes. It is necessary that the substitution 
be so pure and luminous that upon it may not fall the 
bitter curse of devastation. In the meantime we are a 
dissolvent of the race of this country. We soak into 
the nation’s clay and soften it; we mix ourselves with the 
natives, kill their traditions and spread confusion among 
them .. . No one understands anyone else; there is a 


PREFACE II 


confusion of tongues; men, coming from everywhere, 
bring with them the shadows of their several gods...” 

» None of the books on America that I am acquainted 
with make one realize so clearly this phenomenon as this 
profoundly truthful book. For this reason, “Canaan” 
must be considered as the novel of contemporary 
America. The little drama which Mr. Aranha has 
located in a small town of the state of Espirito Santo, the 
bitter and truceless struggle between old Brazil and the 
European immigrants, is the drama of all America at 
this particular historical moment when America is being 
Europeanized and Europe is being Americanized. And 
it is not surprising that an American nurtured in the old 
culture of Europe, should have been inspired by this 
historical phenomenon to create a beautiful work of art. 


GUGLIELMO FERRERO. 








= 








CANAAN 





CHAPTER I- 


ILKAU rode quietly the tired horse he had hired 
to take him from Queimado to the city of Porto 


do Cachoeiro, in Espirito-Santo. 

The eyes of the immigrant rested on the peaceful 
uniformity of the landscape. In that region the 
earth expresses a perfect harmony of all its parts. The 
river is neither large and awe inspiring, nor terrifying 
and tumultuous. The mountains are not like those that 
thrust their heads into the clouds with a fascinating at- 
traction, inspiring to some dark cult or inviting towards 
death, as if to a tempting shelter . . .The Santa Maria is 
a child of the heights, sprightly at its beginning. Then, 
hindered for a long distance by stones which force it 
into falls and from which it extricates itself with a 
mighty effort, it regains its accustomed speed and be- 
comes playful and joyous. It flees through a little wood 
and insinuates itself into the bosom of the round soft 
hills which seem to look on its pranks benevolently . . . 
The hills rise gracefully, covered with short grass that 
falls along their sides like a yellowish tunic. At that 
moment the solitude formed by the river and hills was 
peaceful and bright. There was nothing in it to indicate 
anguish and terror. 


[15] 


16 CANAAN 


Absorbed in the contemplation of the landscape, Milkau 
let his horse go at an indolent and broken pace. The 
loose reins fell on the neck of the animal, who moved his 
head lazily up and down and now and again lowered his 
eyelids over his watery eyes. There was a lazy abandon 
in their movements, a languid trailing through the peace- 
fulness of the landscape. The humble noises of Nature 
contributed to the voluptuous sensation of silence. 

The gentle breeze, the murmuring of the river, 
the voices of the little insects, all made the 
broken immobility of things more soothing and more 
profound. The unceasing noises of life, the perturbing 
movement which creates and destroys, was interrupted 
here. Even the rising sun appeared quietly from the 
calmness of the night, and its rays had no power to 
disturb the quietude of the earth. Milkau fell into a 
deep and consoling meditation. He who does not enjoy 
an absolute repose does not live within himself. In the 
turmoil, Milkau’s voice had modulated accents which he 
could not perceive. To-day in the solitude, he was 
frightened by the disturbing sensation which emanated 
from his sore and excited nerves. All eternal, and beauti- 
ful, and holy creations of the soul and the heart are en- 
gendered by the mysterious and fertile forces of 
silence... 

In front of the immigrant rode his little guide, son of 
the stableman at Queimado. The lad, very much bored 
by the journey and his companion, allowed himself to be 
carried along by the old horse. At times he uttered some 
word which was lost in the air; again, as a diversion, he 
scolded his mount, spurring him into a broken gallop. At 
such moments Milkau viewed the lad with compassion, 


CANAAN 7 


full of regret at the sight of the skinny and bony crea- 
ture, miserable offspring of a race that was dying out in 
the dumb and unconscious suffering of a species that 
never arrive at a blossoming period, or the full expan- 
sion of individuality. The traveler, coming out of his 
deep reverie, called to the lad: 

“Do you always come to Cachoeiro?” 

“Ah!...” exclaimed the boy, as if scared at the sound 
of a human voice. “I come when we have customers. I 
came the day before yesterday, but for a long time before 
there was no one from Victoria. Besides, it has rained 
such a lot lately! ...” 

“Which do you like better: your house or the city?” 

sine city, sir!’ 

“All you have to do is to accompany travelers to 
Cachoeiro, isn’t it?’ continued Milkau in his questioning, 
which pleased the boy. 

The lad replied pertly: 

“Oh! no, sir.” 

“What else do you do, then?” 

“We help our father .. . Sometimes we go to the fish- 
ing grounds to haul in the nets. To-day we had just re- 
turned when you arrived... Just a few fishes . . . Only 
four ... The river is very low. Uncle Francis says it is 
because the water is very cold, but Aunt Rita says that as 
the moon is full, the mother of the waters will not allow 
the fishes to come out. The best thing to do is to fish 
with explosives, but the officials won’t allow it, and the 
people have to waste their labor for nothing.” 

“Have you any meat at Queimado?” 

“Ah! yes, sir. There is dry meat in my rather’s store, 


18 CANAAN 


but it is for the customers. We eat only fish, and when 
there is none, we drink mingao.. . ” 

They continued on their way inland. 

The landscape had not changed in general design. The 
sun had hardly begun to brighten up the atmosphere. 
Milkau surveyed his little guide with kindly eyes; the lad 
smiled gratefully, opening his colorless lips and showing 
a set of greenish teeth, sharp as those of a saw. His 
emaciated face was illumined with the sweet resigna- 
tion of his race. 

“How much further have we to go, my son?” asked 
the traveler. 

“More than half way. We can’t see yet the ranch 
of Samambaia, and from there to the city is as far as 
from Queimado to the ranch.” 

“Must you return home right away, or will you take 
a rest? Will you stay until the afternoon?” 

“Oh! sir. My father ordered me to go back at once. 
To-day I must go with my mother to gather wood, and 
after I have taken care of the animals, I must mend the 
net which Uncle Joseph Francis’ boat tore this morning. 
And to-night, before the rising of the moon, we go to cast 
the nets, for if the water be warm there will be a good 
catch ... That’s what my father said.” 

The kindly immigrant could see in the unfortunate 
boy’s nine years the astounding precocity often exhibited 
by the children of the wretched. The youngster, excited 
by the conversation, straightened upon his horse, gathered 
up the reins firmly, tightened his bony legs against the 
sides of his mount, and started the animal at a sharp 
trot. Milkau instinctively followed the boy’s example, 





CANAAN 19 


and thus the pair of them—a temporary partnership of 
pity and misery—advanced along the road. 

» Shortly afterwards, in a bend of the way, the boy 
stretched one hand forward and, turning his face back, 
said to his companion: 

“We have arrived at Samambaia.” 

There, on top of a hill, a brownish building was hardly 
discernible in the ashen blue of the horizon. As Milkau 
advanced, the view became narrower, and the hill so con- 
cealed the road that it seemed as if the latter, by a 
supreme effort, had stretched itself to die at its foot. The 
travelers were skirting, now a coffee plantation on the 
hillside, now one of manioc, in the low lying lands. The 
land was worn out and the plantations were poor. The 
coffee plants lacked the dark-green color which indicates 
a healihy sap, and, instead, were colored with a light 
green which shone under the golden rays of the sun. 
The manioc plants, thin and delicate, waved as if they had 
no roots and the wind would carry them away. The sun 
was clearing up the sky and the air was filled with the 
songs of the river and the birds, that seemed to prolong 
the dawn. On contemplating that land, exhausted but 
smiling, one felt a sad mixture of discouragement and 
hitter pleasure. The land there was dying like some 
beautiful woman, still young, and with a smile on 
her discolored face, but exhausted for the toils of life 
and barren for the pleasures of love. 

Milkau and his guide reached a gate which closed the 
road where it enters the lands of Samambaia. The lad 
pushed the gate open with one hand, and the hinges gave 
a discordant screech. Then Milkau entered, and the gate 
closed itself with a dull thud. The road, after entering 


20 CANAAN 


the lands of Samambaia, described a wide curve which 
embraced the vale and approached the bank of the river. 
It was muddy, sticky and wet, full of ruts made by ox- 
drawn carts, and it gave forth a stench of loam and dung. 
Uphill the land was uncultivated and covered with wild 
grasses. Here and there a few oxen, shaking with the 
restless movement of their heads the bells they carried at 
their necks, browsed along, puffing and puiling impatient- 
ly at the grass. The hides of the poor beasts closely fol- 
lowed the lines of their skeletons. A few birds kept them 
company, anums of ill omen that lighted on the decrepit 
backs of the oxen, shrieking like the trumpeters of 
death. 

When Milkau arrived before the house, he let go the 
reins and began to look around. The house he was ob- 
serving was big and low, with no windows, but with an 
immense piazza around it into which opened some ill- 
fitting and paintless doors. The house had been painted 
white but had become dark, with an uneven brown color; 
here and there the moss had traced curious, fantastic de- 
signs on the walls; there was a stair from the piazza 
which lacked several steps and had had the hand-rail torn 
from it; in front, the grass grew in big tufts, hardly dis- 
turbed by the paths which led from the house to the road 
and in several other directions. On one side there was a 
chapel—built a good many years before—guarding in its 
silence the voice of devotion which had some time sound- 
ed there, converted now into an unknown and mysterious 
reliquary of antique images of saints, ingenuous beauties, 
perhaps, of a primitive, simple and religious art. 
Inside the little church, and guarded by the divinities 
therein imprisoned, lay in the sacred ground the remains 


CANAAN 2I 


of masters and slaves rendered equal by death and ob- 
livion... 

* Milkau’s horse went on at a slow pace. The guide 
yawned with indifference, and lifting one leg, crossed it 
over the saddle with a gesture of resignation. Turning 
towards the house, he saw a man advancing to the 
rail of the piazza, and recognizing him, said lazily to his 
companion : 

“There you have Colonel Affonso.” 

Milkau saluted courteously, taking off his hat; the man 
above answered by lazily lifting his straw hat. The 
master of the ranch, barefooted, in a pair of cotton 
trousers and a soft shirt, appeared to be very old, judg- 
ing by his white beard; and the whiteness of his skin 
bore witness to the purity of his blood. His face was 
sad, as if he were conscious that responsibility for the 
misfortunes of his race and family fell upon him; his 
look was empty, like an idiot’s, betraying no interest 
whatever in life’s activities. It seemed as though the 
exhaustion of his faculties, emotions and sensations, was 
complete, and had brought him to the miserable condi- 
tion of an automaton. But, in spite of this, he repre- 
sented a human figure, the superior life, which tangled up 
in the débdcle of its surroundings, had been dragged 
along into the general ruin. And there is no sadder pic- 
ture than that in which the action of time, the force of 
destruction, does not confine itself to traditions and in- 
animate things, but envelopes human beings in the catas- 
trophe, striking and paralysing them, and increasing the 
painful situation to an infinite melancholy. 

Almost at the edge of the road was the mill where 
flour was prepared. It was a ramshackle building, 


22 CANAAN 


covered with blackened, broken tiles on which green moss 
grew, a thick forest in miniature. Inside the building 
stood the fly-wheel, a silent reminder of days when 
grain had been ground, and, beside it, the wheel where 
in slavery times the manioc was grated. There were 
also two pots where the flour was now mixed by the rudi- 
mentary process of paddles. They were made of brass 
and therein differed from the rest of the machinery scat- 
tered on the floor,—tubes, boilers, cogwheels—showing 
that there had been there an excellent installation which 
man, falling from degeneration into degeneration and 
losing all the varnish of an artificial civilization, had 
abandoned in his decadence for primitive appliances 
which harmonized better with the brutish condition into 
which his spirit had fallen. 

Milkau proceeded along the road, compassing with his 
eyes the picture of that miserable ranch. The figure of 
the colonel remained stationary upstairs, presiding with 
his vacant stare over the silent disintegration of those re- 
mains of culture and awaiting in a mournful attitude the 
slow invasion of the jungle which, in triumphal revenge, 
was gradually circumscribing man and things human .. . 

The travelers continued to move along this landscape in 
which the forces of life seemed to have been paralyzed, 
and where everything had the rigidity and perfection of 
immobility when, turning to the right, they came almost 
suddenly upon a native ranch. It was a miserable dwel- 
ling built cross-like, thatched with straw that projected 
irregularly beyond the walls. The little guide went up to 
the house instinctively, as if impelled by the force of 
habit. Leaning against a pillar an old mulatto of cloudy 
eyes looked vaguely into space. He wore a threadbare 


CANAAN 23 


pair of trousers; his body was naked and his tanned skin 
covered the mighty structure of an athlete; on his chest, 
as if it were the dying trunk of a tree, grew a whitish, 
curly down which covered him up to the neck and there 
became a rather thin beard. His attitude was one of 
primitive adoration, of never ending astonishment at the 
splendor and glory of the world. 

On the threshold was sitting a young mulatto woman. 
She seemed indolence personified. Her unkempt hair 
stuck out of her head like horns; her skirt hung careless- 
ly over her emaciated bosom and her flaccid breasts fell 
loosely on her belly. Standing beside her, a little negro, 
with no other wearing apparel than a string round his 
neck, from which hung an amulet of dough and a pic- 
ture of Solomon, gazed intently at the new arrivals. 

Milkau saluted the group and they let him come for- 
ward without betraying the least emotion. The old man, 
answering the salute, merely said: 

“Get off your horse, young man.” 

“No, thank you. I am ina hurry... 

“Well, sir, from here to Cachoeiro is only a little bit. 
Look . . . In two turns of the river you are in the city.” 

Then the old man, as if reflecting for a minute and 
feeling a desire for sociability, insisted that Milkau 
should get off his horse. The guide waited no longer, 
and slipping from the saddle, he left his own horse alone 
and went over to hold the reins of the other horse while 
Milkau alighted. When he was on his feet, Milkau 
yawned with restful satisfaction. 

The foreigner grasped the rough horny hand of the 
old man, who opened his lips in an ungainly effort at a 
smile, showing his red, toothless gums. The young 


” 


24 CANAAN 


woman did not budge; scarcely moving her eyes, she 
cast on the traveler a glance full of laziness and dis- 
couragement. The child cuddled up against her, open- 
mouthed, the saliva running from its thick lips. 

From the door, Milkau could see the interior of the 
dwelling. The roof was high in the middle and pitched 
so sharply towards the sides that at the walls a man 
could not stand upright; the furnishings, simple and 
mean, consisted of a tobacco-colored hammock rolled up 
and hooked on the wall, a mat made of rushes spread on 
the floor, two low stools, an oar, reels of fishing tackle, 
and a few agricultural implements. A small straw par- 
tition, like a screen, enclosed a corner, forming a little 
room where one could see another mat and a fowling 
piece. At the back, a door opened into a clearing in the 
forest in which grew a group of banana plants; and near 
the door, some black stones, mixed up with pieces of 
charred wood, betrayed the kitchen. 

“Have you lived here long?” asked Milkau. 

“T was born and I grew up in this countryside, young 
gentleman .. .There, near Mangahary’”—And he extend- 
ed his hand towards the river. “Do you see a big house, 
away back? It is there I grew into a man, in the ranch 
of Captain Mattos, now dead. The Lord have mercy on 
his soul!” 

Following the hand with his eyes, the foreigner could 
faintly see a heap of ruins which interrupted the verdure 
of the forest. The conversation continued through a 
series of questions from Milkau as to the former con- 
ditions of life in the region, to which the old man an- 
swered with pleasure, for such questions gave him a 
chance to talk of times gone by. Like most primitive 


CANAAN 25 


and simple people, he was incapable of assuming the in- 
itiative in a conversation. He related in broken phrases 
‘tthe story of his sad life. All of it was a pathetic drama, 
without action, without adventures, but full of an intense 
and profound agony! He spoke of the old house full of 
slaves, of the simple festivities, of the labors, of the pun- 
ishments . . . And in his rough dialect he murmured, as 
if in ecstasy, his sorrowful recollections. 

“Ah! All that, my young gentleman, is gone... 
Where is the ranch? My late master died. His son 
continued to live there until the government deprived him 
of his slaves. Everything went to pieces. The master 
went to Victoria, where he has a job; my mates went into 
the forest and each built a house here, there and every- 
where, just where they pleased. I, with my people, 
came here, to the colonel’s land. Things are sad now. 
The government finished up the ranches and flung us into 
the world to look for something to eat, to get something 
to dress with and to work like oxen in order to live. Ah! 
those were good times at the ranch! We ali worked to- 
gether. Some gathered coffee, some husked corn, all to- 
gether, good people, mulatto women, kids . . . Who cared 
for the foreman? ... A whipping never killed anyone. 
There was always plenty of food, and on Saturday, Sun- 
day’s eve, the old drum used to beat until the early morn- 
me. 

In this fashion the former slave went on mixing, in the 
bitterness of his nostalgia, recollections of the pleasures 
of the communal life of yesterday, protected by the 
paternal influence of the ranch, with the despair of the 
present isolation and the melancholy of a world gone to 
pieces, 


26 CANAAN 


“But, my friend,” said Milkau, “at least you are living 
on what is your own. You have your own house, your 
own land. You are your own master.” 

“My land; my... nothing! The house belongs to the 
husband of that daughter of mine sitting right there. 
The land belongs to the colonel and is rented for ten 
thousand reis per year. Nowadays everything belongs 
to the foreigner; the government does nothing for the 
Brazilians; everything is for the Germans... ” 

The old negro trembled with emotion and stared blank- 
ly into space. He went on with his monologue: 

“Are you going to settle here, sir? Ina year you will 
be stinking with money. I have seen your countrymen 
arrive here with their pockets absolutely empty and their 
hands hanging by their sides ... And now .. . they all 
have a house, a coffee plantation, a herd of mules... 
The government has taken everything from the Brazil- 
ians, ranches, horses, negroes . . . The only thing they 
did not take from us is the grace of God.” 

And his sad eyes grew darker and darker. The fog 
that covered them became more dense, as if made thicker 
by the sorrowful vision of his native land conquered by 
the invading hordes of foreigners. 

There followed an oppressive silence. Milkau per- 
ceived the echo of this complaint of the eternal slave, the 
ill-defined resignation of the underdog. There was some- 
thing pitiful in that protest, and the inability to give it a 
free and elevated expression served to increase the old 
man’s agony. He continued to shake his head, trying at 
the same time to repress the sobs that shook his frame. 
The daughter, with her sinister indolence, increased the 
Oppressiveness which seemed to weigh everything 


CANAAN 27 


down .. . Milkau had a choking sensation, as if the 
weight of responsibility for the fate of these wretches 
fell upon him. He searched in vain within himself for 
a suitable sentiment and for consoling words in which 
to express it. He found nothing. With a forced smile 
he bade these people farewell. 

“Goodbye, old man! See you again.” 

The negro gave him his hand. The rest of the family 
remained motionless, stupefied. 

Milkau continued his journey in the bright light of the 
morning, which had now reached its full glory. The 
wind blew a little stronger, waking things from sleep into 
life again. The river flowed in a direction opposite to 
that followed by the travelers, and these contrary motions 
gave the impression that all the landscape was 
animated and filing past the eyes of the horseman. The 
ranch perched on the summit was gradually disappear- 
ing in the horizon, and the immigrant watched the pano- 
rama passing gently by: settler’s dwellings, men, every- 
thing slipped along slowly and quietly, but impelled by 
an irresistible force which allowed nothing to stand still. 

The road stretched far away. Other roads met it 
here and there, unknown, numberless, uncertain as are 
the paths of man on earth. The cool breeze blew gently 
along between the opposite ranges of hills, which run 
parallel to the river, and brought to the ear of the tra- 
veler the rumbling of a waterfall. The Santa Maria 
river, throwing itself like a madman against the rocks, 
thundered with increasing volume, and its turbulent 
waters reflected the light of the sun as from a shaky 
mirror. Milkau saw, far away, in the forest still reeking 


28 CANAAN 


with fog, a large white stain. In front of him, the guide, 
stretching forth his arm, shouted: 

“Porto do Cachoeiro!” 

Milkau, as if waking from a dream, breathed heavily. 
His body shook with the excitement of a man who at last 
sets foot on a longed-for land; his blood, coursing rapid- 
ly through his veins, seemed to salute the city ; his nerves, 
his will, seemed to transmit an active energy to his 
lazy horse. The animal, as if transformed by the cool 
breeze and the sight of familiar places which marked the 
end of his journey, dilated his nostrils, snorted, shook 
his mane, arched his neck and broke into a quick gallop. 

Then, ascending a small height which dominated the 
city, hemmed in between hills and the Santa Maria river, 
Milkau looked at the landscape around him. Flooded by 
sunlight, with its houses in all the glory of color, vibrat- 
ing with the music of the waterfall from which the river 
escaped in a silvery ribbon, the little city seemed at that 
moment the daughter of the sun and the waters. 

The travelers hurried on. They had already reached 
the first houses, miserable dwellings that seemed to have 
come out on the highway to welcome strangers. Watch- 
ing them closely, Milkau noticed that they were inhabited 
by negroes—the descendants of the slaves—and he 
imagined them squeezed out by the invasion of the 
whites, but still seeking the scattering and feeble rays of 
social heat, and squatting at the threshold of the city 
which was foreign and forbidden to them. 

The travelers descended the slope and came to a gate 
which the guide opened to let Milkau through. They 
slackened their pace on entering the city. 


CANAAN 29 


“Where do they get off, boss?” asked the solicitous 
guide. 

“At the house of Mr. Robert Schultz. Do you know 
him?” 

“Certainly, of course. Who doesn’t... Biggest house 
in the city ... Last Sunday I took a young fellow there.” 

The horses were panting and their gait was broken, 
making the riders feel as though they were descending 
some rocky slope. The horses’ sides were covered with 
thick, soapy foam, and with their reins hanging on their 
necks, they stumbled on the loose stones of the street. 

Milkau was suffering from the visual confusion due to 
a brusque change of scenery ; his eyes could not retain any 
one image, and on his retina there was but the vague im- 
pression of a small German city in the midst of a tropical 
forest. To the mind of the immigrant came the con- 
fused and feeble remembrance of “auld lang syne” as he 
saw the white city shining in the golden rays of the sun. 

They arrived before a large building and the guide 
alighted and helped Milkau to get off. They bade each 
other good-bye, and no sooner had Milkau entered the 
store than the boy was away with the horses. The es- 
tablishment of Robert Schultz was very large. It had 
four doors to the street, while innumerable and varied 
merchandise gave it an air of great size and opulence. 
There, one could deal in everything: lands, wines, agri- 
cultural implements, coffee. It was one of those colonial 
stores which are an epitome of commerce and which, 
amidst the profusion and multiplicity of merchandise, 
manage to preserve a trace of order and harmony. 

The store was at that hour full of people, and Milkau 
had to make his way to the counter through a host of 


30 CANAAN 


customers standing huddled together, a crowd of hesitat- 
ing, heavy, slow-moving Germans. 

They told Schultz that a traveler was looking for him, 
and immediately Milkau was shown to a desk where a 
full-bearded, bull-necked man received him. The immi- 
grant gave him a letter of introduction which the man 
proceeded to read, interrupting himself now and then 
to take a look at the stranger. There was in the eyes 
of Milkau a soft light, an overpowering calmness which 
disturbed the old merchant, who read and looked at the 
immigrant thoughtfully and with evident displeasure. 
Finally he folded up the letter carefully and began to 
rattle his fingers on the desk. 

“Well, then,’ he commenced, just to say something, 
“You intend to settle here, do you?” 

Milkau answered affirmatively and Schultz advised 
him not to come to any decision until he had taken a good 
look at things himself. 

“This is a miserable and wretched hole. You will get 
sick of it, I assure you ... Perhaps it would be better 
for you to go to Rio or S. Paulo. There, yes ... Those 
are great commercial centres where you would easily 
find a job. The colony is a fraud; you used to be able to 
earn some money, but now business is pretty poor...” 

“But...” interrupted Milkau. 

Schultz paid no attention and continued his harangue, 
trying to set Milkau’s mind against Cachoeiro. 

“In my opinion, you should certainly go back this very 
day. We are full of people. Here in my own house, I 
have so many employes that I am going to dismiss some 
of them. You won’t be able to find employment in one 
single house in the colony. What’s the use of trying to 


CANAAN 31 


do business nowadays with so many taxes, the poor rate 
of exchange and the exactions of the politicians? ... 
For here, in spite of being foreigners, or perhaps for 

* that very reason, we are the ones who support the dif- 
ferent political parties in the state. The elections will 
soon be here; the bosses will arrive from Victoria, and 
we have to house them, feast them and round up the 
voters for them. Now, all this is making us poor. What 
we earn is but a mere trifle compared to the extra ex- 
penses...” 

“But I didn’t come here with the intention of starting 
in business,” ejaculated the traveler. 

“What’s that? Do you intend to go in for coffee? ...” 

And Schultz did not conceal his surprise at finding a 
colonist in an immigrant who was far too well dressed to 
be a simple farmer. 

“Ah! that’s a different story,’ continued the merchant 
in more friendly tones. ‘‘There’s nothing like tilling the 
soil. Go to the jungle, fix up your ranch, and in a short 
time you will be rich. And... don’t forget. Our store 
is entirely at your service. We will supply you with 
everything you need, and as soon as you can, you send us 
your coffee. That’s the way we do it here: we are paid 
in kind ... which is a great advantage to the colonist,” 
he added, slightly lowering his eyes. “You have arrived 
at an excellent opportunity to purchase a lot in the new 
lands at Doce river, which are just being opened up to 
the immigrants. The land commissioner has just had 
the notice put up for the survey and sale. The surveyor, 
Mr. Felicissimo, is in Porto do Cachoeiro, on his way 
to the lands. He is a gay spark who always pays us a 


32 CANAAN 


visit. You know, he is a regular customer here and be- 
longs to our party.” 

Milkau thanked the merchant for his offer and was 
getting ready to set out in search of lodgings, when 
Schultz called him back. 

“Don’t bother looking for a hotel. You'd better stay 
with us. We have plenty of rooms for guests, as 
usual... Besides, you can be very useful to me now as 
company for a young man, also of an important family, 
who just arrived yesterday ... Imagine... a son of 
General von Lentz. The youth seems sad and taciturn. 
I don’t know what can be the matter with him... Maybe 
he is ashamed of having immigrated . . . Ah! those 
boys(ss2:° 

And with a malicious smile, he stood up and begged 
Milkau to follow him. The latter was almost smothered 
by the attentions and courtesies bestowed on the pros- 
pective customer. They went from one end of the coun- 
ter to the other, where the staircase led to the floor above. 
Milkau’s eyes were blinded by the strong light of the 
morning. At the door of the store an old woman with a 
crooked nose and parched face was just arriving on her 
mule. She was seated between two bags that hung from 
hooks in the saddle. A drove of donkeys passed along 
the street, laden with coffee baskets and shaking their 
bells. 

A young man was busy writing in the room which 
Milkau and Schultz entered. He stood up to greet them. 

“T am bringing you a companion,’ announced the 
master of the house, “a countryman of ours who wishes 
to settle at Doce river...” 


CANAAN 33 


And turning toward Milkau, he told him to make him- 
self perfectly at home, and asked him about his baggage. 

Milkau explained that he had sent everything by the 
canoe and that it would arrive in the evening. Schultz 
then left the two immigrants alone. 

“Please don’t interrupt your work on my account,” 
said Milkau politely. 

“Not at all. What I was doing is in no particular 
hurry. I was just killing time.” 

And they began to talk about trifles, about the journey, 
the weather, the country. While they were talking, 
Milkau was admiring the nobility of young von Lentz’s 
features and did not tire of observing the lustre of his 
fiery eyes, which dominated a beardless face of strong, 
sharp lines, and which protruded from a big, solid 
head like that of a Roman patrician. But at the same 
time that he felt this sudden enthusiasm for the sculptural 
lines of the young figure, Milkau experienced a certain 
disappointment at finding in these strange lands the son 
of a German general—a privileged being in their own 
country—escaped, as it were, from his own great world 
to come and bury in the mystery of the colonies his 
burden of disappointments, despair, and anguish... 

In a few moments the new arrivals found themselves 
in the big dining room of the employes of the store, and 
took their places at the table. The room was absolutely 
bare; the walls, merely whitewashed, were devoid of any 
design. The servants, as machine-like as soldiers, wait- 
ed on the host of employes eating in silence. In all the 
faces of these men, so different from each other, some 
old and wrinkled, others young, with a perpetual adol- 
escence, there was the imprint of a determination to fulfil 


34 CANAAN 


some practical duty, to move forward in the harmon- 
ious ensemble of a single unit. Milkau could read in 
this gathering of Germans the provincial and military 
character which is the very basis of a tenacity and obe- 
dience that have reduced all that their race ever possessed 
in the way of moral elevation and beauty into an over- 
powering monotony. Where was that sacred Germany, 
that land of individualism, that sweet asylum of free 
genius? Milkau asked himself the question amidst the 
racket of the meal, while he watched the company of 
blonde men. - And meditating on the German soul, he 
thought that the solution of the enigma could only be 
found in images and obscure expressions, in the vague 
symbolisms of metaphysics. “Who knows,” he con- 
tinued to soliloquize, as if in a dream, “who knows but 
that some day two dissimilar spirits found themselves in 
one body: one of them servile to matter, ambitious, 
greedy, trying to overpower the other as it flew far above, 
oblivious of gods and men, creating purely and without 
any foul intercourse, in the placid regions of the ideal, 
the figures of poetry and of dreams. And who knows 
how hard and how bitter was the struggle between those 
two forces? ... There was one moment when the fiend 
from the earth vanquished the spirit of beauty and of 
freedom, and the body is now at peace, without 
anxieties, without struggles, like a herd of slaves eating 
up the remains of their past genius, a divine food whence 
comes the light which now guides it in its mournful and 
devastating march through the earth...” 

The repast finished, the employes filed out in order. 
Milkau and Lentz went out leisurely, like people who had 
nothing to do. Back in the room, they decided to visit 


CANAAN | 35 


the city, and when a few moments afterwards they were 
passing through the store, Schultz called them. 

‘SVe have with us Mr. Felicissimo, who is going to 
make the survey at Doce river the day after to-morrow.” 

And as he spoke he pointed to a slender man, small 
and swarthy, with a triangular face pitted with small- 
pox, his head flat, like a hawk, and a pair of black eyes 
that shone like two burning coals. 

“Mr. Milkau,” said Schultz, “has just arrived and he 
intends to secure a lot. I explained to him a short while 
ago that the best lots are at Doce river, and you will do 
me a great favor by giving him one in the best possible 
location.” 

“Why, of course!” exclaimed the solicitous surveyor, 
opening his arms as if he wanted to embrace someone. 
“To-morrow morning, without fail, I’m going to join my 
gang at Santa Theresa. The day after to-morrow, very 
early in the morning, we set off, and then, about eleven 
o’clock, we shall camp at the port of Inga, at Doce 
river ... When are the gentlemen coming?” 

Lentz looked embarrassed for an instant, and then re- 
plied half-heartedly : 

“Where to, the country? ... I haven’t made up my 
mind yet what I shall do in the colony ... A good deal 
depends on Mr. Schultz...” 

The merchant shook his head, and in a solemn tone, 
though somewhat subdued, as if he were appealing to the 
testimony of those present, he said: 

“Mr. von Lentz prefers a situation in the city, in busi- 
ness... But Mr. Felicissimo can tell you how hard it is to 
secure one... All the business houses are full and the 


36 CANAAN 


time is rather unfavorable ... Let us wait a while... 
let us wait a while...” 

Felicissimo asked Milkau when he intended to start. 

“T’m only asking so as to make the necessary arrange- 
ments and avoid any delays when we get there. The 
business is quite simple. You want a lot, and the land 
commissioner, who is somewhere near Gandu, gives it to 
you, but we don’t require his assistance to make the 
survey. Besides, I am authorized to do everything in his 
absence. I can even grant lots to the colonists, who can 
start work right away... We are not very fussy in doing 
things . .. There are no formalities . . . Everything is 
settled, legalized, afterwards. Only one thing is 
absolutely necessary, and that is to pay the fees at 
GHCE hs) 

Milkau interrupted him to ask about the journey. 

“How many leagues is it from here to Santa Theresa?” 

“Five. And from there to Doce river, another five. 
The gentleman should go from here to the heights of 
Santa Theresa, stop there for the night, and continue the 
next day to Doce river.” 

“Do we need a guide?” 

“No... You can’t lose your way ... The road is quite 
frequented...” 

Schultz offered to send the immigrant with some 
drovers who went that way every day. Milkau thanked 
him without accepting the offer. 

Leaving Schultz behind, they went out into the street. 
Felicissimo, who said he had nothing to do in the mean- 
time, offered to accompany the strangers by way of 
killing time in a pleasant fashion. 

Porto do Cachoeiro, scorched by the sun, was visible 


CANAAN 37 


to the immigrants in its full extent. The city consisted 
of two parts united by a bridge. Only one part, the one 
on the left, seemed to be flourishing; the other consisted 
of a few houses which lined the bank of the river. Not 
a garden relieved the austerity of the dwellings, no 
orchard adorned the roads, no trees sheltered the streets 
with their shadows. For the first time, perhaps, the 
settlers in the tropics were unacquainted with the pleasure 
of keeping domestic animals or cultivating plants and 
flowers. A strict and systematic barrenness seemed 
stamped on the facades of the houses, which were merely 
the dwellings of a tribe of merchants. In the street, 
Milkau tried to guess at the moral meaning of the place 
and he was disturbed by a feeling of anguish caused by 
the white sterility of the city, for it seemed to him that 
the foul breath of commerce had killed the natural grace 
and poetry of this privileged corner of the earth where 
the merchants had established nefarious temples to specu- 
lation. Felicissimo walked hurriedly, relating the mir- 
acles wrought by fortune with these merchants. 

“This tall building here,” he said, pointing to a narrow 
house similar to all the others in the street,’ belongs 
to Frederick Bacher, leader of our opponents’ party. He 
is Schultz’s rival and enemy. He came here without a 
penny. To-day, see how wealthy he is! They are all 
like that here. All of them have piles of money. You 
might say that the volume of business in Cachoeiro sur- 
passes that of Victoria... You never hear of a case of 
bankruptcy here . . . These Germans certainly have an 
eye for business ... Had they been Brazilians everything 
would have gone to the dogs.”’ 

And the surveyor continued in the same vein, praising 


38 CANAAN 


to the skies the Germanic virtues for business and econo- 
my, their ease for assimilation, their energy for work, 
and pointing out, as a contrast, the inferior qualities of 
the Brazilians, which he recited with pleasure in his 
anxiety to appear to his companions superior and just, 
and yet trying to flatter them at the same time. In order 
to give himself an air of importance, and pretending to 
be intimate with the inhabitants, he left Milkau and Lentz 
from time to time and went into a store to exchange a 
few words with the owner. Sometimes he managed to 
get the owner to come to the door with him, and for the 
edification of the newcomers, allowed himself certain 
liberties, patting him on the back, poking his ribs and 
making fun of him by way of a joke, to all of which the 
complacent German, smiling and getting red in the face, 
would murmur, as if excusing the surveyor to the others: 

“This Mr. Felicissimo is a perfect devil...” 

The three went along thus, attracting people’s attention 
by the gestures and the high-pitched voice of the sur- 
veyor, and looked upon with curiosity by the drovers un- 
loading their beasts and by the customers who thronged 
the stores. Lentz had no interest whatever in going from 
house to house in Felicissimo’s annoying and vulgar 
fashion, and in order to avoid this tiresome peregrin- 
ation he suggested climbing one of the hills which domin- 
ate the city, that they might enjoy the view of the sur- 
rounding country. The other two agreed and away they 
went, guided by Felicissimo. In order to reach the most 
accessible hill, they had to go to the other side of the 
bridge spanning the waterfall, which deafened them with 
its incessant roar. The men’s footsteps set up a re- 
sounding and powerful vibration as if they had been a 


CANAAN 39 


troop of cavalry. The hill stood on the other side, and 
they started to climb by a stony path of loose gravel 
which made their march irregular aud fatiguing. Freli- 
cissimo, very agile, went in front. The other two, un- 
used to the heat, walked heavily, bathed in perspiration. 
As they gradually ascended, the voice of the waterfall 
died down, the perfume of the mountain plants met 
them, and the rarefied air seemed to sooth the irritation 
caused by the heat. At first the perspective was nar- 
row, shut in by a circle of hills. From the summit, how- 
ever, they dominated a vast, rolling region and the eyes 
of the foreigners experienced an instant of delicious 
ecstasy. The curved outline of the mountains covered 
with thick turf, growing with a variety of colors, the 
river gliding through the valley, the limpid, dry air, so 
diaphanous as to offer no obstacle to the sight, the sky 
covering the earth with a mantle of deep azure, formed 
an ensemble of light, colors and lines that gave the land- 
scape a look of serene majesty. 

Felicissimo was the interpreter of the region. _Per- 
fectly acquainted with everything, he gave every place 
and object its proper title. Milkau stood calmly on the hill- 
top. He had uncovered his head, and the rays of the sun 
broke on his hair—fair as a nymph’s—and on his bushy 
beard, with glorious splendor. He was a well-built man, 
with the soft and rosy skin of a woman, and his powerful 
eyes, blue as the sky, gathered and absorbed the picture 
before him. Youth had not abandoned him yet, but in 
the harmony of the placid lines of his face there was the 
calmness of maturity, which had begun to arrive. 

Felicissimo pointed one by one to different parts of the 
horizon; the others followed with their eyes his rapid 


40 CANAAN 


gestures, and dazed by his garrulity, they could hardly 
make out the strange and barbaric names which reached 
their ears, but carefully registered in their minds the 
impressions caused by the beautiful country. Towards the 
east lay the district of Queimado, and the long road 
which crosses it unrolled sinuously, now through an open 
and smiling plain, now through the green of a sparsely 
planted wood. Finally it reached the small group of 
houses which form the port of Mangarahy, on the banks 
of the Santa Maria, which there flowed proudly and lazi- 
ly, having freed itself from the waterfalls. Towards the 
north, south, and west, the mountains, crowded together, 
looked like big blotches of paint. Here Gandu, over 
there Santa Theresa, two sombre regions which the 
colonists are wrenching away from the mysterious 
silence of the solitude, Along a vale full of sunlight, 
flowed a rivulet, long and transparent like a bridal veil. 
Towards the west the Santa Maria hugs the coffee plan- 
tations and the farms, and struggles with the black ledges 
that strive to hold it back. 

Milkau could read in that panorama the simple his- 
tory of this obscure region. Porto do Cachoeiro was the 
boundary of two worlds that met each other. The one 
betrayed the past in the sad and angular landscape of the 
east, where marks of exhaustion branded even the smal- 
lest objects. There could be seen ranches in ruins, aban- 
doned dwellings, traces of slave huts, chapels, all per- 
fumed and consecrated by death. The waterfall formed 
the boundary. On the other side the landscape presented 
stronger and darker lines. It was a new land, ready 
to shelter the avalanche of immigrants who came from 
the old regions of the other hemisphere, avidly seeking 


CANAAN 41 


her full warm breasts. Here was to germinate the gene- 
ration who would some day cover all the land, when 
the waterfall would no longer divide two worlds, two 
histories, two races that are fighting each other, one with 
perfidious lust, the other with timorous energy; and when 
they will be united in one great creative love. 

They descended the mountain and re-entered the city 
as the stores were being closed, only to be opened again 
after dinner. At that moment there was great anima- 
tion in the streets, crowded with people leaving the stores 
to go home. 

“Nearly everybody here seems to be German,” re- 
marked Lentz to the surveyor. 

“Yes, there are very few Brazilians . . . You might 
safely say that there are none in business.” 

“Then, what do the Brazilians do in Cachoeiro?” asked 
Milkau. 

“The Brazilian residents belong to the forum, judges, 
lawyers, sheriffs. Others are civil servants, tax collec- 
tors, post-office officials...” 

“And teachers?” asked Lentz. 

“There is only one; for the language taught in the 
forest is the German tongue and the teachers are Ger- 
mans, except in the city . . . We haven’t any priests 
either, nor church, as you must have noticed. It’s true 
there is no need of them because Catholics here are 
mighty rare, and for the Protestants there are three 
pastors in the chapels of Luxemburgo, Jequitiba and 
Altona... The Catholics of this district are the people of 
Queimado, of Mangarahy and other places where the 
real natives live.” 

Felicissimo continued to vo.unteer information about 


42 CANAAN 


the place; his companions listened in silence, and he went 
on talking until they arrived at Schultz’s house. The 
surveyor bade them good-bye, promising to return on the 
morrow to accompany them in some other excursions. 

After dinner, which took place in the same quiet and 
orderly way as the lunch, the newcomers went upstairs to 
their room, not feeling any desire to go out and spend 
the first few hours of the evening at the brewery, across 
the street, as was the custom of the place. Milkau was 
tired with the journey and the walk. Lentz felt excited 
by the emotion of meeting a countryman who, for 
reasons which he could not well determine, interested and 
attracted him already. 

They sat together near an open window. The calm of 
the evening brought things in general to a standstill, giv- 
ing them the restfulness and immobility of a picture. At 
that hour Nature excelled herself, taking on the serene 
expression of Art. The early perfumes of the surround- 
ing forests descended to embalm the air, and tenuous 
shadows began to enshroud the landscape. The two im- 
migrants were lost in silent admiration, and a curious 
melancholy seemed to murmur to them an explanation 
of pictures dreamed of but never seen, of the nostalgia 
of illusions which were now being realized here... 

“It seems to me that I have seen this picture else- 
where,” said Milkau, meditatively. “But no. It can’t 
be. This air, this languid environment, this sudden tor- 
por which one perceives must pass away in a short 
time ...no, I have not seen this before.” 

“And how long are we going to remain here?” asked 
Lentz, yawning with disappointment, while his eyes wan- 
dered lazily over the landscape. 


CANAAN 43 


“T don’t reckon time,” answered Milkau, “for I don’t 
know how long I have to live, and so I hope now that 
I shall settle here for good. I am an immigrant and my 
soul longs for rest; this will be my last journey on 
earth. ..3” 

“But, have you no ambition? Will nothing drive you 
from here, from this painful peacefulness which is like 
the grave for us?” 

“T’ll stay here. If there be peace here, well, it is pre- 
cisely peace that I seek ...I shall live humbly; all I wish 
around me is complete harmony.” 

“And is that why you are going to the forest? Would 
it not be better to stay here in the city and engage in some 
business?” 

“No, I want a tranquil and free life, and business life is 
tortured by greed and ambition . . . Besides, I think that 
the only work worthy of man is agriculture in new and 
fertile countries such as this, and industry in the old con- 
tinent. A business life, with its rude formalities and 
low ambitions and with its intermediate position in the 
social scale, has no attractions for me. I don’t feel 
drawn except to those simple occupations which are bet- 
ter suited to the new order of things that will hold sway 


in the future... And you, have you made up your mind 
to settle in business?” 
“T don’t know very well what to do... I am undecid- 


ed, restless. I think that while business might enable me 
to make a fortune and give me an opportunity for in- 
dulging the gambling propensities common to every man, 
it is, all the same, a low and vile occupation. I am un- 
decided, and were it not for fear of the tedium of the 


44 CANAAN 


forest and for the suppression of all excitement, I would 
perhaps venture to till the land.” 

The city was sparingly illuminated. There were wide 
stretches of shadow, but at some points the lights from 
the street and from the houses fell on the waters of the 
river, which multiplied them in its quivering mirror. 
Lentz remained silent. His gaze lost itself in the night 
as if he were in profound meditation; but his face be- 
trayed lack of serenity and its distorted lines gave it an 
expression of rancor and restlessness. It seemed as if 
within himself, in a secret and painful monologue, he was 
still complaining against his luck, and was struggling in 
vain within the closed walls of fate in an effort, as of a 
wounded bird, to soar into the regions of his dream. 

Milkau felt sorry for this pitiful silence, and allowing 
himself to be carried away by his kind nature, he said 
to his young companion: 

“Why not come and work with me at Doce river? Per- 
haps you would feel happier and more independent there. 
We can buy one lot together, and as we have no family, 
we two will form a company and we will help each 
other ... And if you should repent, you can go away; 
for I shall not complain at being left alone, seeing that, 
so far, that has been my fate... ” 

The words were gentle and kind, and came from the 
heart. On the lips of Lentz fluttered a smile which 
showed that the tempestuous sea of his soul had become 
as calm as a placid lake. 

“Yes, we'll see. . Thanks very much .. Why not?.. 
he murmured with an emotion which, through pride, he 
endeavored to conceal. 

Milkau rejoiced at the prospect of having a companion 


” 


CANAAN 45 


who needed shelter and comfort in his exile. And he 
was also glad for his own sake; for he felt that his com- 
miunicative nature would have ample scope in the com- 
mon life with this youth who appeared to be so intelli- 
gent and whose views revealed, at least, an aspiring soul. 
However, he did not want to press the young immigrant 
to follow his own fortune. Milkau wanted him to reflect 
before he decided to accompany him. Lentz’s determina- 
tion to enter the rude, mean life of a store was only 
half-hearted, and this predisposed him to accept Milkau’s 
proposal, and besides, there was the intellectual attrac- 
tion of his chance companion. Milkau did not insist. 
He even delicately changed the subject. He went on to 
talk of other things. 

“Then the country pleases you? Do you like this 
greenness of spring, the splendor of the sun, the luxurious 
vegetation?” 

“Yes. All this is strong and beautiful, but I prefer 
the European fields with their changes, their frame of 
mountains, their well-defined colors.” 

“Europe,” interrupted Milkau, “has a tradition which 
prevents us from judging aright. Except for traditions, 
I don’t know if the Rhine is worth as much as the Santa 
Maria which, without legends, without a past, just by its 
own merits, charms me so much with its wild banks, its 
limpid waters, its weeping willows...” 

“Oh! but this pitiless sun! . . . Here there is no place 
for the transition of colors. Always this yellow color 
pursues you...” 

And with a forceful gesture of his hand, Lentz seemed 
to be trying to remove from his head the obsession of 
the overpowering light. 


46 CANAAN 


“You will soon get used to it, and you will love this 
country even passionately. I have come from far away 
and I love it more and more every day.” 

“Ah! isn’t this the first time you have been in the 
interior of Brazil?” 

“In this part, yes ... Before, I went through Minas 
Geraes, just after I arrived in the country, when I had 
an idea of settling there; but I didn’t find any facilities 
and I came here.” 

“Whereabouts in Minas were you?” 

“In the west ... It was a great journey for me... 
S. Joao d’el Rei gives one a unique impression.” 

“How is that?” asked Lentz with curiosity. 

“Why, it seemed to me there that I had penetrated the 
unexplored past of Brazil. Oh! it was a happy return to 
the times which are now past everywhere and which only 
there seem to continue their course...” 

Lentz was absorbed in Milkau’s words and the latter 
began to relate his visit to the old mining town. In 
Cachoeiro there was silence. The lights in the houses 
had gone out, and the lamps of the street pointed here 
and there with their light the shadows of the diaphanous 
night, of the summer night which is merely a brief rest- 
ing spell for the day. The waterfall continued to roar 
all the time, but its noises, so even and persistent, went 
unheeded by Lentz, who was all atttention to Milkau’s 
narrative. 

“Then, early in the morning, my sleep—the sleep of a 
tired traveler—was cut short by the pealing of bells from 
many churches, which evoked in me a sweet enchantment. 
As with all men used to the great modern cities, the music 
of the bells was unknown to me in the power and sonor- 


CANAAN 47 


ousness it had that morning; but, nevertheless, that 
strange music did not hurt my ears, and I listened to it 
almost in ecstasy, as if it were an old sensation revived 
again; for it seemed as if it were being understood by a 
longing soul which awakened within me and took pos- 
session of all my being .. . I remained there charmed by 
the caress of sleep... And I dreamt ... The space was 
full of sounds, the light mountain air quivered as if it 
were saturated with music. Nature, awakened by the 
gaiety of the bells, became volatile and diffused itself in 
the air; the city abandoned the earth, full of harmonies, 
and ascended towards the heavens singing ... And I 
dreamt, listening to the pealing of the bells, longing for 
repose, for sleep, for forgetfulness ... The Middle Ages 
appeared to me in my dream: cities, feudal strongholds, 
monasteries, men and things all linked together by the 
voices from the belfries which marked in space life and 
death:.2 +” 

Milkau went on to speak of the old mining town, which 
he described as a sanctuary. The spirit of religion local- 
ized there, gave it a certain character and significance. 
Within its circle of mountains, irregular and ugly, arose 
here and there a church, and all of them were simple, 
sad, erected rather through a need for devotion than 
through a yearning for art. The houses had the same 
austere and simple look and were marked with little black 
crosses on the colorless walls. Everything there wore a 
priestly aspect, everything spoke of religion, churches 
frequented at almost every hour of the day, devout women 
seeking the solitude of the altars, religious festivals 
which preoccupied as well as kept the people amused 
during the whole year. During Lent, the religious fervor 


48 CANAAN 


increased apace... At that time a priest went into the 
streets in the evening, accompanied by a crowd singing 
prayers. A black cross draped in the white folds of a 
sudarium, half a dozen lighted torches, that was all. And 
they went along a via sacra, stopping at the stations 
throughout the city. With a happy and radiant devotion, 
in the most beautiful and complete mingling of classes, 
the people went along the streets praying in a high pitched 
murmur, singing in chorus the prayers begun by the 
priest. And when they arrived at the stations or small 
altars raised in the street, they sang simple and sweet 
songs ... The multitude, kneeling under the clear 
sky, illumined by the rays of the moon, caressed by the 
cool breeze from the mountains, pleaded for mercy... . 
with a smile! 

Surrounded by the hills, the city was guarded by other 
churches posted sentry-like on the heights. Up the 
mountain paths the devout people ascended in pious pil- 
grimage to visit the patron saints of the humble chapels. 
In the afternoons of holy days, in the summer time, there 
used to march a procession of seminarists, and this black 
cordon happened to cross the white company of students 
guided by Sisters of Charity. The two groups went their 
own ways, climbing or descending the hills, describing 
intricate curves, until they disappeared in the horizon .. . 
And if at the hour of. the Angelus some belated pilgrim 
met the seminarists and saluted them in the name of the 
Christ, the young men proudly raised their heads, un- 
covered them with lightning rapidity, and from their 
throats broke out a fervid shout, made more solemn by 
the solitude of the evening: “Praise be to God!” 


CANAAN 49 


The city spoke also of other traditions of old Brazil. 
On its broken ground, deep, wide furrows indicated that 
man, the terrible, had been there to wrench gold from the 
bowels of the earth. The landscape is all marked with 
the scars of the wounds inflicted on the earth, which thus 
ill-treated and abused, clamors to the generations of 
today against the devastations of the past. The man of 
today, clean-hearted as he is, will not fail to shudder with 
terror at the sight of that dead region, the picture of a 
period fuli of slavery, gold and blood ... There are 
houses there which ought to be preserved as relics of the 
best periods of a nation. In them lived martyrs and 
dreamers, and the inhabitants of the place can read on 
the walls of those houses which have escaped the ravages 
of time and are peopled by the ghosts of the past, the 
poetry of the freedom and greatness of the whole coun- 
try. And that mixture of religious and patriotic faith 
gives a peculiar character to the old city, purifying it 
from the vices to which other towns are succumbing... 

Milkau completed his picture with a few remarks: 

“T consider myself very lucky in having gone there in 
time to see all that, for in a short time that combination 
of poetry and national tradition will be no more. Really, 
I feel with deep sorrow that, pretty soon, the city will 
crumble to ruins, surrounded as it is by foreign colonies 
which are choking it by degrees until, some day, they will 
conquer and transform it ruthlessly.” 

“Well, that is the law of life and the fatal destiny 
of this country. We shall renew this nation, we shall 
spread ourselves over it, we shall cover it with our white 
bodies and make it great even unto eternity. The old 


50 CANAAN 


ruinous city of your story is of no interest to me; my 
eyes look into the future. Porto do Cachoeiro has a 
deeper moral significance to-day because of its throbbing 
life and the energy which animates it, than the dead cities 
of a race which is fast approaching extinction .. . To be 
frank with you, the civilization of this country depends 
entirely on European immigration ; but it is essential that 
each one of us should bring along with him the will to 
direct and govern.” 

“In your own words is written our tremendous respon- 
sibility,” said Milkau. “It is probable that our fate will 
be to transform this country from top to bottom, to sub- 
stitute another civilization for all the culture, religion and 
traditions of a people. It is a new conquest, slow, dour, 
peaceful in its means, but terrible in its ambitious 
schemes. The substitution must be so pure and luminous 
that upon it may not fall the bitter curse of devastation. 
In the meantime we are a dissolvent of the race of this 
country. We soak into the nation’s clay and soften it; 
we mix ourselves with the natives, kill their traditions, 
and spread confusion among them . . . No one under- 
stands anyone else; there is a confusion of tongues; men, 
coming from everywhere, bring with them the images 
of their several gods; they are all alien to each other; 
there is no communion of thought; men and women do 
not make love to each other in the same words... 
Everything is disintegrating; one civilization falls and is 
transformed into an unknown one... The re- 
modelling of the nation is being set back. There is tra- 
gedy in the soul of a Brazilian when he feels that his 
race will not last for evermore. -The law of nature is 


CANAAN 51 


that like begets like. .. . And here tradition is broken; 
the father will not transmit his own image to his son; the 
language is dying; the old aspirations of the race, the 
deep-rooted desires for a distinct individuality, will be- 
come dumb; the future will not understand the past.” 


CHAPTERTE: 


And closing his eyes, hurt by the powerful 
light, he could see within his eyelids flashes of 
sunlight like strokes of lightning. 

“T wish,” murmured Milkau, “I wish the sun would 
never set ... The home of man should be limited to a 
piece of land where there would be no shadows.” 

The two young men continued on their way to Santa 
Theresa, leaving behind Porto do Cachoeiro. At first, 
the road passed over some hills denuded of trees, and 
after crossing the clear, rolling landscape over which 
flitted the shadows of a few wandering clouds, lost itself 
in the jungle. When Milkau and Lentz suddenly entered 
the cold darkness of the jungle, they .experienced a 
sort of dizziness, from which they gradually recovered, 
and became lost in admiration at the sight before them. 

The tropical forest is the manifestation of force in the 
greatest disorder. Trees of all kinds and sizes, trees that 
stand erect trying to reach the line formed by the tops of 
the tallest ones, and when other branches bar their up- 
ward way, bend down until they almost touch the ground 
with their tops. Enormous trees whose shade could 
shelter a whole battalion, trees whose trunks could not be 
spanned by five men. Slender trees rising to take a peep 
at the sky, thrusting their heads above the immense, 
tremulous sea formed by the tops of the others. There 


[52] 


GC I CAN’T see very well,” said Lentz. 


CANAAN 53 


is sap for all of them, energy enough for the develop- 
_ment of the highest beauty in each of them. All this 
vast flora reveals antiquity and life. There is nowhere 
to be found the traces of a sacrifice which might be the 
triumph and prize of death. Within the forest, the 
parasitic plants curl themselves around the old trunks 
with the gracefulness of an ornament and a caress. 
There are even trees that are mothers of other trees and 
gracefully support their daughters, which are rooted in 
their bosoms, and at times these daughters are even more 
beautiful than their robust, handsome mothers. An in- 
‘finite variety of shrubs grow at the feet of the green 
giants, and a host of minute, compact, daring flowers, 
grow between others larger and more beautiful. And 
everything stands upright, everything expands over the 
earth, forming an enormous, brutal whole, composed of 
rough members; above, the branches of the trees are 
woven into a thick, close awning; below, the strong, 
knotty roots are intertwined into an endless net; every- 
thing is interlocked, the gigantic arms twist themselves 
around each other, holding fast in a living, organic, soli- 
darity ... Through the small opening in the forest, 
through the transparent leaves, there descends a discreet 
light, and under this soft illumination is displayed in the 
thick of the jungle a gorgeous array of colors. Each in 
itself is bright and warm, but the shadows of the trees, 
now advancing, now receding, give them a complete, glor- 
ious gradation, from the darkest green to the lightest 
white. And there, at each end of the road, the gates of 
the forest form a blue circle, away in the distance, as if 
they were gates made of light, of a zodiacal, sweetly 
infinite light ... And from this colossal body, from the 


54 CANAAN 


new trunks, from the old trunks, from the green leaves, 
from the dead leaves, from the parasitic plants, from the 
orchids, from the wild flowers, from the resin which 
slides down the trunks, from the birds, from the insects, 
from the beasts hidden in the fastness of the forest, there 
comes a mysterious and singular smell, which is volatilized 
and diffused throughout the whole and which, like the 
perfume of cathedrals, soothes, intoxicates, and makes 
everything drowsy. It is this perfume, both acrid and 
heady, with the soft light surrounding everything, which 
makes the essence of restfulness in the jungle . . . The 
silence of the forest is so serene, so profound, that it 
seems eternal. Formed by the soft voices, the murmur- 
ings, the rhythmic movements of the plants, it is com- 
plete and absolute in its perfect harmony. If a reptile 
slips through the heaped up dry leaves, then the rustle 
breaks the harmony for a moment; there is a fugitive 
quiver in the air, a shock agitates the nerves of the forest, 
and the travelers who go through it, awed by its august 
solitude, turn round quickly, feeling an instantaneous, 
electric shiver of fear run through their bodies... . 

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Lentz, recovering from 
his astonishment. 

“The sensation which we experience here is quite dif- 
ferent from that caused by European sceneries.” 

And looking up, ahead of him, Milkau continued: 

“Here, the mind is dwarfed by the stupendous majesty 
of nature... We become lost in admiration. And, after 
all, he who is lost in admiration is but the slave of a hyp- 
nosis: his personality disappears to dissolve itself in the 
soul of the Whole... A foret in Brazil is somber and 
tragic. It has in itself the tedium of things that are 


CANAAN 53 


eternal. A forest in Europe is more diaphanous and 
transient; it undergoes infinite transformations through 
death and resurrection, which there succeed each other 
like night and day.” 

“But the spectacle of the great Brazilian jungle is 
astounding, isn’t it?’ asked Lentz. 

“Yes. The truth, however, is that when we come to 
the regions of the wonderful, the spectacle deprives us 
of our own selves, it enslaves us. That’s what happens 
with this vitality, this light, this abundance. We pass 
through here as in an ecstasy, without understanding the 
mystery...” 

And they went on silently through the covered way, 
absorbed in admiration. 

After a while, Lentz spoke what he was thinking. 

“It is impossible to have any civilization in this coun- 
try ... The earth itself, with this violence, this exuber- 
ance, is an immense spectacle...” 

“Well,” interrupted Milkau, “you know that nature 
has been vanquished here, that man is triumphing... ” 

“But what has been done here is almost nothing, and 
even at that, it has been done by Europeans. The Brazil- 
ian is not a progressive factor, he is a hybrid. And 
civilization will never be accomplished by inferior races. 
Look at history...” 


MILKAU 


One of the blunders of the interpreters of history is 
that they conceive the idea of race with a strong aristo- 
cratic prejudice. | Nobody, however, has been able, to 
this day, to define the word race, or even to tell how 
races are distinguished from each other. Lots of 


56 CANAAN 


phrases have been coined on this subject, but they are all 
like those cloud designs which we see up there, fantastic 
apparitions with nothing solid to back them up... And 
then, which is the privileged race that it alone shall be 
the tool, the agent of civilization? There was a time 
when the Semites flourished in Babylon and in Egypt, 
and the Hindoos on the sacred banks of the Ganges, and 
they were the whole of civilization; the rest of the world 
was a chaos about which nobody cared. And at present, 
it is on the Seine and the Thames that culture is degene- 
rating, surfeited with voluptousness. What I see in the 
vast panorama of history, to which I turn questioningly 
and anxiously, is that civilization moves on untiringly 
from group to group, through all the races, pouring its 
light and its heat on vast tracts of land... Some are 
flooded with light, while others are left under impene- 
trable shadows... 


LENTZ 


Up till now, I don’t see any likelihood of the black 
races ever attaining to the civilization of the white ones. 
Never in Africa... 


MILKAU 


Africa’s day will come. Races are civilized by fusion. 
It is in the meeting between the advanced races and the 
savage virgin races that lies the conservation of civiliza- 
tion, the miracle of its eternal youth. The part the 
superior races play is due to an instinctive impulse to 
extend their culture, transmitting from people to people 
the product of the fusion, which, after the period of ges- 
tation, carries farther and farther the capital accumulated 


CANAAN 57 
by numberless generations. It is thus that Gallia became 
France, and Germania, Germany. 

x 
LENTZ 


I don’t believe that from the fusion with species radi- 
cally incapable may result a race efficient enough to de- 
velop civilization. It will always be an inferior culture, 
a civilization of mulattoes, eternal slaves, always quar- 
reling and fighting. So long as a race which is the pro- 
duct of such fusion is not eliminated, so long will civili- 
zation be a mysterious artifice constantly debased by the 
sensualism, the bestiality, and the innate servility of the 
negro. The social problem for the advancement of a 
country such as Brazil, is the substitution of Europeans 
for a hybrid race such as the mulattoes. Immigration 
is not a simple case of esthetics which affects merely the 
future of one country, it is, rather, a very complex ques- 
tion which affects the future of all humankind. 


MILKAU 


The substitution of one race for another is not a re- 
medy for the ills from which a civilization may suffer. 
I hold that progress will be effected in a constant and 
indefinite evolution. In this great mass of humanity 
there are nations which reach the highest advancement, 
then sink and die; others scarcely reach a modicum of 
culture when they disappear immediately; but mankind 
as a whole, formed by peoples, races, nations, does not 
stop in its march, it goes on progressing all the time, and 
its eclipses, its relapses, are nothing but transformation 
periods, which are followed by better times. It is the 


58 CANAAN 


law of the universe fulfilled in mankind, which is but a 
part of it... When there is no action on the quiet 
resplendent surface of things, there is taking place a sub- 
terraneous commotion, powerful and dark. At times, on 
an isolated point on the surface, there is the opacity of 
struggle, and from the fusion a people is formed which 
recapitulates civilization from its inception and prepares 
itself to carry progress farther than did the procreative 
peoples... 
LENTZ 


How can that be? Then, from the contact of artistic 
peoples with savages you obtain a race which exceeds in 
esthetic capacity its artistic progenitors? 


MILKAU 


Art, Lentz, may diminish or increase in some of its ex- 
pressions, according to the various influences of sur- 
roundings and time; but the mere fact that certain forms 
of art do not flourish, is not an indication that its progress 
is not greater than ever. If the opposite conclusion were 
true, then humanity must have retrogressed since the 
Greek period or the period of the Renaissance, for until 
now, history has no record of happier times for sculpture 
and painting. 

LENTZ 


But the whole question lies in the proper understand- 
ing of moral progress. 
MILKAU 


When humanity left the silence of the forests for the 
turmoil of the cities, it described a long parabola from 


CANAAN 59 


the greatest slavery to the greatest freedom. The goal 
of mankind is the establishment of solidarity, the union 
of man with man, the elimination of causes of separation. 
At first it was might, at the end it will be love. 


LENTZ 


No, Milkau, might is eternal and will not disappear; 
it will always subjugate the slave. That civilization 
which is the dream of democracy, of fraternity, is in 
reality a sad negation of all arts, of all liberties, of life 
itself. A man must be strong and have a will to live, 
and he who one day attains to the consciousness of his 
own personality, who gives himself up to the satisfac- 
tion of his desires, he who in the opulence of a magic 
poetry creates a world for himself and enjoys it, he who 
makes the ground tremble, he who is himself the very 
flower of strength and beauty, he, I say, shall be lord. 
His goal in life is not the vulgar and mean mixing of 
peoples ; what he seeks in the world is to give expression 
to the inspirations of Art, to noble, indomitable energies, 
to the dreams and visions of the poet, in order to 
lead his flock like a shepherd, like a chief. What matter 
solidarity and love? To spend life in equality is like rot- 
ting in the mire... 


MILKAU 


All the activities of mankind reflect an aspiration for 
freedom. Liberty is the support, the stimulus, the raison 
d’étre of society. Order is not a moral principle; it 
merely is a pre-existing and indispensable factor in the 
conception of society. Society cannot exist without order, 


60 CANAAN 


just as there cannot be a sum without figures. There 
may be harmony at times even inthe regime of slaves 
and lords, but it will be temporary, and without liberty 
there is no order possible. The search for and the at- 
tainment of freedom, as a foundation for solidarity, are 
the aim of all existence . .. But to get there, what a road 
man has to travel! ... Liberty, like life itself, is born and 
grows in pain... 
LENTZ 


Oh! but that pain sprinkles victory with bitter drops. 
No, the real man is he who frees himself from pain, he 
whose nerves are not contracted by agony, he who is 
serene and does not suffer, he who is lordly, omnipotent, 
who preserves his integrity complete, he who does not 
love, for love is but a painful unfolding of the person- 
ality. 

MILKAU 

What unites us in mankind with solidarity is pain. 
Pain is the foundation of love, of religion and of art, and 
you cannot substitute for its fecund consciousness the 
tyranny of a ferocious insensibility. 


LENTZ 


I really think that we ought to go back and erase to 
the very last traces the blot of this civilization of the 
humble, the suffering, the degenerate, to purify ourselves 
from its poison that is killing us after filling us with in- 
finite sorrow. 

MILKAU 


I see in the fervor of your words that my sadness be- 
fore the picture of mankind is entirely different from 


CANAAN 61 


yours ... but it is sadness and despair in both cases. The 
evil is universal, nobody is satisfied with the times; 
everybody complains, and neither lord nor slave, rich 
nor poor, educated nor ignorant, have their share of joy, 
of satisfaction, as they would like to. And when ina 
society one individual suffers, that drop of agony is 
enough to condemn the whole foundation on which the 
community rests. There is a crisis in everything, the 
ground itself is shaky and tremulous, the world is stum- 
bling, the atmosphere is irrespirable. Amidst conflicting 
aspirations, in the turmoil of varied sentiments, how 
could you obtain the sweet and peaceful harmony of life? 
Religion went ; it belongs to time, and like time, once gone 
it never returns ... A civilization of warriors persists in 
spite of the peaceful aspirations of man’s soul. Every- 
thing is topsy-turvy, mixed up, struggling in a whirlwind 
of despair . . . The shadow of the past enters too much 
into the dwelling of man, filling his abode with spectres 
and visions which perturb him and set him back. And 
the future, a messenger of gladsome tidings, advances 
cautiously like a thief in the night ... But I did not wait 
for its vacillating, tardy step; I threw off my heavy 
clothing, and free from the encumbrance, I went forward 
to receive the perfume and the nutriment which, slowly, 
hesitatingly, it is bringing to men. And how sweetly I 
feel salvation within me! 


LENTZ 


And to arrive at that . . . you left country, family, 
society, a superior civilization? 


62 CANAAN 


MILKAU 
I abandoned all that is vain. 


LENTZ 


And Europe, Germany, have no further attractions for 

you? 
MILKAU 

Only the greatness of their past. But that is incor- 
poreal, invisible, and I don’t need to sit on its ruins in 
order to admire it. You only need imagination and 
memory to do that. My cult for what is human and active, 
springs from the double consciousness of the continuity 
and the undefinableness of progress. What Europe pre- 
sents to us as a form of life, is merely an inharmonious 
continuation of the forces of yesterday and of the ex- 
igencies of the present. 


LENTZ 


I don’t understand how one can, of his own free will, 
exchange Berlin for Cachoeiro . . . What city of Ger- 
many are you from? 


MILKAU 


I come from Heidelberg, and my earliest remem- 
brances are associated with it. I can see myself with my 
father, always together, day and night, like a body and 
its shadow .. . He was a college professor, one of those 
university men who are very learned, but like the majority ~ 
of them, he was rather shaky in his vast scholastic 
culture. My father, Lentz, was gentleness itself, 
and the images which I preserve of him in my mind, are 
those of a man made up of sweet smiles; he had a clear, 


CANAAN 63 


subtle intelligence, but being somewhat pusillanimous, his 
great store of kindness and love remained buried in his 
heart, and the world knew nothing of it. He restrained 
and subdued his own imagination. Oh! what barriers he 
set up to his own mind! Foolish preconceptions came to 
the call of his timidity, and he received them as if they 
had been protecting gods. And in this there was a deep 
unhappiness which must have embittered his life. His 
expressions never revealed his intense love for human- 
kind. It was a perfume which he kept in his innermost 
soul, without allowing it to show itself, and this 
excess of concentration caused his death... 


LENTZ 


How old were you then? 


MILKAU 


I had just left the university and was coming out into 
the world when my father died. Day and night my 
mother watered with her tears the remembrances planted 
in her heart. Sorrow undermined her health, and I loved 
her and looked after her until her death, as if she had 
been a little daughter... 


LENTZ 
And then?... 
MILKAU 


After three years of leading a life between sad re- 
membrance and sorrow, I left Heidelberg with a pro- 
found silence within my soul. Then, I began to hear 
the accents of my own voice. 


64 CANAAN 


LENTZ 


And did you never hear the voice of a woman? 


MILKAU 


No. 


LENTZ 


And did you never love a woman? 


MILKAU 


When I was ten I felt love for the first time, but as 
happens with all premature things, that passion of my 
childhood was half illness, half mystic ecstasy. What- 
ever religious feelings there are in me, found expression 
in the adoration of what I was looking for; I attributed 
my luck and my misfortune to that powerful and tor- 
menting influence. And meanwhile she kept fleeing from 
me ...A long time passed in this deceiving hunt; my 
studies, my games, my childish dreams, took on the form 
of intense tortures; I shed tears and sweated blood. How 
I shiver when I remember so much life, so much love 
wasted on a mere shadow ... . Was it in vain? I don’t 
know ... When I look back on the past, that period of 
my life is precisely the one that charms me most; I feel 
how balmy it is with the love of my youth; that perfume 
which purified my adolescence reaches me yet .. . And 
it was, perhaps, very fortunate that on that mountain of 
fire, reared on my soul, never descended a caress, a smile 
which would have cooled and extinguished it... Up, up 
I went. By the time I was twenty, everything had come 
to anend. Her death filled my whole existence, and for 











CANAAN 65 


a long time I found no consolation, until another love, 
the one and only, seized me for ever... 

Milkau was interrupted by a pealing of bells which 
traveled along the road and was multiplied in the silence 
of the jungle. By and by the sound lost its melancholy 
sweetness and was mingled with human shouts and the 
rumbling of animals. Soon the two friends saw a herd 
coming from the high lands towards Porto do Cachoeiro. 
The leading mule was covered with colored ribbons that 
hindered the movements of its head. Milkau and his 
friend stepped to the side of the road and leaned against 
the trees, but even there the animals, following the trail, 
brushed them with their loads of coffee, and looked at 
them with their immense, sad, unfathomable eyes. Most 
of the herdsmen were white men, the others mulattoes, 
and their shouts, their orders, their curses, were spon- 
taneously expressed in the language peculiar to each of 
them. The troop went down the road with a violent 
racket which disturbed the peaceful sleep of things. It 
left behind the acrid smells of green coffee, raised dust, 
and the stirred mud which in the shade and dampness of 
the trees never disappears. The two friends walked a few 
steps in silence, but in that strange world they were 
seized by a strong desire for confidences, and walking 
between the endless rows of trees, they eagerly returned 
to the never-ending dialogue about eternal themes. 


LENTZ 
Really, a short time ago I could not have imagined my- 
self here in the middle of this forest .. . We are governed 
in his life by the unforeseen . . . It is a simple story—said 
Lentz, answering a question he could see written in Mil- 


66 CANAAN 


kau’s eyes—a question of love or, rather, a question of 
conscience .. . I loved a woman whom I believed to be 
the sublime creature who, being weak, loves the strong, 
and being humble, loves the proud. And so, we went 
along the sumptuous road of my phantasy, I leading her 
through the solitude of the snow-covered mountains, 
along the green lakes that refresh the earth, or through 
the cities with their commercialism and vileness. My 
beloved learned all the sensations and voluptuousness. 
She loved in the blood and in the flesh, and thought she 
was satisfied and happy; but one day she rebelled. The 
soul of the western woman, which the cowardice of man 
has rendered eternal, awoke in her to demand from me 
an unconditional surrender. She found strong support for 
her pretensions in the Christian prejudices of my father 
and in the scruples and fears of my mother, who tried 
to soften me with the vapor of her morbid tenderness. 
I protested. My father-in-law was an old general, a 
companion in arms of my own father, and he demanded 
reparation from my family for what had been an act of 
independence due to my extreme sensibility. And what is 
worse, in my own social group I found a hostile atmos- 
phere; they all thought themselves clean enough in con- 
science to avoid my company, and I confess with shame 
that I could not stand that collective pressure from the 
companions of my own class! ... It will be a long time, 
Milkau, before man will be able to free himself from the 
group to which he belongs, to emancipate himself from 
the horrible tyranny which destroys his individuality 
and hides his face under a vulgar mask, without any dis- 
tinction whatever of the family, class or race. My ar- 
rogance abated somewhat; what there was in me of the 


CANAAN 67 


coward, of the slave, weakened the energy of my attt- 
tGide; what there was in me of intellectual, of advanced 
and daring ideas, was killed by the old, inplacable hos- 
tility .... Then I fled, abandoning my studies, my social 
position, my family, my fortune. What I sought, in 
exchange for all I left behind, was a larger world, still 
virgin and free from contact with the lascivious and 
depressing morals of Christianity; a real domination for 
the new man, for the man who, jumping over centuries 
of humility, wants to shake hands with the ancients, and 
with them and under their influence endeavors to pro- 
duce a world that will be the realm of radiant force and 
triumphant beauty. And I came to these virgin forests 
with the idea of living here alone in the exaltation of my 
ideal, or to transform them in some future day into a 
white empire, which is the desire and the goal of my 
blood. Up till now, I have traveled a good deal. The 
sea gave me the first great sensation of freedom; I 
dreamt in it, and I lived intensely, with the joy of pure 
thought ... but I did not live on the sea, because there I 
remained inactive, and life is action... 


MILKAU 


What we seek is so different from what other people 
seek ... Like you, I abandoned my native land, society, 
civilization, in search of greater, of eternal benefits. My 
wanderings began at an early date... When my mother 
died, my first impulse was to leave Heidelberg and go to 
live elsewhere. Berlin attracted me, and I thought I 
would find there a solution to my existence, then aimless 
and vague. What tormented me most was the conscious- 
ness that I was living just to live, without any interest 


68 CANAAN 


in life itself. Lacking any religious beliefs, without any 
moral idea which might support me, society was of no 
concern to me, and I could derive no consolation 
from anything. My existence was aimless, wandering 
with chance acquaintances, and I didn’t know where my 
steps might lead me. I wandered around like a fugitive, 
seeking in exterior things calm for my spirit. I took 
endless walks, eternal tramping through the streets, 
through the parks of the city, through the quiet woods . . 
But I brooded just the same, and I always went back to 
the past in my heart, invoking the great images of those 
I had loved and whose photographs crowded my room, 
just as they themselves were ever present in my mind. 
All this time, when my disgust at the world kept constant- 
ly increasing, I felt growing within me a strange desire 
for love, for rest, for sleep which I could never attain; 
my torture was infinite, my melancholy overpowering. 
My beloved! . . . my mother! ... my father! ...I 
couldn’t rest much longer. My mental disease seemed 
to me incurable, with my longing for realities and every- 
thing appearing intangible, uncertain .. . Nothing could 
make life attractive to me; what I love now hadn’t yet 
arrived. I was living in a continual disillusionment; 
my doubts embraced such illimitable spaces that my mind 
oscillated and lost itself in the world of ideas and emo- 
tions. It was then that I felt that anxiety to finish in 
some way, to put an end to my doubts, and, utterly dis- 
couraged, I decided to act in the only way which seemed 
to me positive in life, that is to say, I decided to commit 
suicide . . . But the contemplation of the moral misery 
around me prevented me from carrying out what I 
called, in my insanity, an act of the will. All the suffer- 





ee... ee 


CANAAN 69 
ings of my fellow beings reached my soul; the slow 
@gonies and the hard sacrifices of others excited my 
pity. In the state of mind in which I found myself, I 
was strongly drawn towards those who seemed to be like 
myself. I was suffering, and Pain, with its strong and 
holy hand, led me to other men... I reflected: “If all 
men suffer and become resigned, it is because life is 
preferable to death, and suicide cannot be collective sal- 
vation. It isn’t a case of saving one of the martyrs, it is 


necessary to save them all.” ... And the idea of suicide 
gradually faded from my mind as the beneficent light of 
solidarity began to shine in it... In order to vanquish 


despair, I had to find a reason in life which would cure 
me of my hankering for death and would give an outlet 
to my new feelings. I surveyed all the roads that could 
open before me...I realized right away that I could 
not continue in the position I held as literary critic on 
a Berlin journal; I lacked the courage to speak of books 
inspired by an empty art, without any ideals, saturated 
by sensuality. I realized more and more the false position 
in which I found myself, forming part of a group 
of ignoramuses and dogmatists who, wrapped in the 
mystery of the press, exploit their fellow men, whose 
simple credulity, there as everywhere else, renders them 
accomplices in the perpetuation of evil upon earth... 
And whither shall I go? I humbly asked myself. Which 
shall be my role in the world’s stage? Politics? Diplo- 
macy? War? 


LENTZ 


Yes, War. For she is strong and dignified. The 
world ought to be the happy home of the fighter. 


70 CANAAN 


MILKAU 

Those two lives, the politician’s and the diplomat’s, are 
empty for him who does not seek his own comfort and 
ambition, for him who does not wish to rot in sterility 
and egotism, for him who seeks things eternal . . . War 
is a retrogression to the past, to an ideal which is dead 
to civilization and was becoming more and more repel- 
lant to my mind .. . I had nowhere to go; my crisis was 
prolonged in this perplexity, for it wasn’t a case of choos- 
ing between life and death, but between any life and one 
life, the life I dreamt of, the life I yearned for and which 
I sought everywhere without being able to find it...I 
could not go into an office or a factory, for there I could 
not find a suitable atmosphere for my independence and 
my love. It wasn’t a case of doing some work; it was a 
case of giving free expansion to my individuality, and 
industry in this old civilization is like a defile of battle, 
which splits society into lords and slaves, rich and poor. . 
My agony continued, and amidst those torments, I passed 
my existence in the soothing contemplation of Art. 
Beauty entered my mind like a sweet sustenance. Con- 
templating the triumphant lines of the statues, excited 
by the vividness of the gestures, rested by the calm atti- 
tudes of the eternal marbles, drinking in with my eyes the 
infinite poetry of color, in the unfathomable enigma of 
the human figure, my mind rested and gathered strength 
for existence . . . And then I began to travel for days 
and days through countries where art still seeks its 
fountain of mystery and eternal youth... It was through 
art that I began to love nature, for until then my percep- 
tion of the exterior world was vague and uncertain; I 
had my eyes turned to my own particular case, to my 








CANAAN 71 


own endless and indefinite meditations. From the 
moment I appreciated art, and beauty took possession 
of me, my sight expanded over the outer world, 
and I saw its splendor everywhere. The panorama of 
the sky interested me profoundly. I spent whole days 
admiring the limpidity of the atmosphere, letting my eyes 
wander through the crystaline air or dreaming about the 
immensity of the clear blue cupola which forms space. I 
saw the sea, the small sea of the south of Europe, smooth 
and oily, which embraces a land full of sinuosities, the 
shelters of man, a sea that does not awe, a friendly sea, 
forming a link of union between peoples. And from 
other shores, white, immense, I contemplated another sea, 
a gloomy sea which strikes terror in one’s heart, which 
subjugates and which, like liberty itself, is inaccessible, 
tempting, indomitable . . . My worship for nature drew 
me away from everything that was not its contemplation. 
Wandering about, lost in admiration, I spent long periods 
of time alone in the forests, in the lakes, in the woods, 
extracting the highest beauty from everything. I subsist- 
ed more through the reflections of light from the picture 
where life is taking place than through the food from 
the earth . . . In the autumn the sun scorches the trees 
into yellow, and there Death appears like a golden 
glory .. . In winter, in the fantastic, dead landscape, the 
skeletons of the trees are covered with white, and on the 
earth falls the plentiful snow, light in the air, white like 
ermine, rustling like sand...At that time my mind 
was perfectly oblivious to the tragedies of the past and 
the worries of the future, and the hypnosis which dead- 
ened my conscience made this forgetfulness seem like 
perfect happiness. Thus I lived for a long time, so 


72 CANAAN 


wrapped up in my cult that I went through the world 
silently and as a stranger. I traveled in my ecstasy, 
which was like a golden chariot dragged by the fiery 
steeds of my imagination through the marvelous roads of 
the placid and mysterious regions of immortal beauty 
... This condition of artistic trance was followed by a 
desire for self-denial and self-mortification. To lead, in 
the full consciousness of sensualism, the solitary life of 
the monks, to eliminate, to evaporate my animality in 
the combustion of fecund and active feelings, such was 
the task which I undertook. Buried in a small village, 
in the heart of the Bavarian Alps, I gave myself up en- 
tirely to meditation and study... 


LENTZ 
And did you obtain any consolation? 


MILKAU 

At first I deceived myself, thinking that there wasn’t 
a hardier, a nobler life. . . but the old monks were heart- 
ened by the consolation of adoration . . . My isolation 
was merely intellectual, a sort of snobbery towards the 
world, the mean expression of one who abandons his 
post in life. After the first few moments of pleasure and 
peace, my cowardice tortured me excruciatingly, and soli- 
tude became an afflictive condition. Today Lentz, 
when I think of the isolation to which a man consecrates 
himself, I think of the pleasures of the refuge, I think 
that it is a sacrifice, but I also think that it is a manifesta- 
tion of empty pride. Asceticism is like a solitary island 
burning in the middle of the sea; its blinding fires have 
a fantastic illuminating power over the world, but its 
flames frighten men away ...1 could not allow myself 


CANAAN 73 


to burn in those flames, for I had within me a portion of 
hwfhanity which led me towards life. Then, one morn- 
ing, I descended from the height . . . Here, in my eyes, 
I still preserve the last vision of the glacial mountains. 
Never shall I return to the vaporous ice-fields, never 
again shall I see the rosy light of the sun striking the 
frigid, white stones which are the ice-blocks. Lonely 
and dead landscape, like the bottom of a dried-up sea, 
where the ruins of life pass blown by the icy wind... 
Farewell, mountains of silence, consolation and inmola- 
tion! .. . When I came down, I was a different man. 
Love smiled within me and protected me; an infinite 
contentment seized me and has never abandoned me 
since. What I loved was to make, to generate love, to 
unite myself with the spirits, to dissolve myself in the 
universe and let the essence of my life diffuse itself 
everywhere, penetrating even to the smallest molecules, 
like a beneficent force... 
LENTZ 

No, no! Life is struggle, is crime. All human plea- 
sures taste of blood, everything represents the victory, 
the expansion of the warrior. You were great when 
your sinister, solitary shadow stalked through the Alps 
scaring the bears away. But when love enslaved you, 
you began to degenerate; your manly figure is becoming 
blurred, and I shall see your face some day, without 
light, without force, without life, a miserable prey to 
sadness, 

MILKAU 

The principle of love sustains me, protects me. I am 
one of those who were consoled by it... The drama of 
my mind was coming to an end, the painful transition 


74 CANAAN 


from a hereditary moral condition to a personal con- 
science was drawing to a close. Reflecting on the con- 
dition of humanity, my thoughts grew clarified when I 
saw the march of man, beginning from initial slavery . 

At first there is chaos; shapeless° masses cover the 
earth like clouds; little by little, from this cosmic con- 
fusion emerge men, personalities, though the rest still 
remain indistinct in the generating matter. But a day 
will come when the hour of creation shall strike for 
them; love will bring them to life, for its work is to 
create men. Some day the whole will be subordinated 
to all, in order that each of us may enjoy the greater 
freedom. It is the parabola described by life, from the 
meanest slavery to the greatest individuality. 


LENTZ 
[Looking at the jungle] 

See how everything gives you the lie. This jungle 
which we are crossing is the result of strife, the victory 
of the strong. A hundred battles did each tree fight be- 
fore it arrived at its magnificent blossoming; its history 
is the defeat of many species, the beauty of each is pur- 
chased with the death of many which were ee 
from their first contact with the powerful seeds .. . How 
magnificent is that yellow tree over there! 


MILKAU 
The ipe, the sacred wood from which the Indians make 
their ‘bows +. 4 
LENTZ 
The ipe is a glory of light; it is like a golden parasol 
in the middle of the forest’s green vault; the sun burns 
its leaves and it serves as a mirror for the sun. In order 


CANAAN 75 


to reach that splendor of color, of light, and of bodily 
development, how many deaths has the handsome ipe 
perpetrated ... Beauty is an assassin, and that’s why men 
adore her so much ... The process is the same every- 
where; and the road of civilization lies also through blood 
and crime. In order to live life, it is necessary to ex- 
haust energy to the last ounce, not run counter to it. 
Those who cross their arms are dead. The large fish 
swallows the little one. It is the law of the world, the © 
monarchical law; the strong attract the weak; the lord 
drives the slave, man drives woman. All is subordina- 
tion and rule. 
MILKAU 
[Looking at the jungle] 

The whole of nature, the group of beings, things and 
men, the multiple and infinite forms of matter in the 
cosmos, I see them all as one single and immense whole, 
supported in its minutest molecules by a cohesion of 
forces, a reciprocal and incessant permutation, a system 
of compensation, of eternal alliance which weaves the 
frame and the vital principle of the organic world. And 
everything works for everything. Sun, star, earth, in- 
sect, plant, fish, beast, bird, man, form a co-operation 
of life on this planet. The world is an expression of 
harmony and of universal love. (Pointing to the vegeta- 
tion which covered the top of arock). Truly, the life of 
men on the earth is like that of those plants on that rock. 
The summit of the mountain was a sterile rock upon 
which the seeds of the trees and of large plants, carried 
by the birds and by the winds, could not germinate. At 
last, one day, they brought the seeds of alge and of 
primitive plants for which the rocks provide enough food 


“6 CANAAN 


for growth. After a long time, the seeds which at first 
had been unsuccessful, were brought to the mountain 
again and they found the soil formed by the alge and 
grew upon it, spreading their shadow on the ground, pro- 
tecting the early dwellers of the stones which then de- 
veloped with a mightier growth, curling around the 
trunks of the trees, which were their children. From 
that great love, from that infinite and intimate solidarity, 
emerged what we admire now: a tropical garden radiant 
with light, with color, with perfume, covering the naked 
mountain with a crown of triumph... Human life must 
be also like that. Men are unequal, but in order to 
reach uniformity, each has to contribute his share of 
Jove. The evil lies in force; it is necessary to abolish 
all authority, all government, all property, all violence. 
It is necessary not to disturb the harmony of motions and 
the spontaneity of all beings. In the task of civilization 
the rdle of each is equal to that of the others; the acts 
of the great and the acts of the lowly are confused in the 
final result. History bears witness that culture is not the 
result of blood and crime alone; side by side with moral 
coaction there is the powerful force of sympathy. The 
work of the past is venerable because on it the future 
will be founded. Let us not curse a civilization which 
came to us in the old blood, but let us so arrange things 
that this blood may be more love and less butchery every 
day. Let our inmost animal instincts be transformed in 
the luminous flight of pity, self-denial and love... 

They had arrived at the end of their journey. The 
two men looked at the red sun hiding behind the moun- 
tains, and contemplated Death, which was quietly taking 
possession of things... 





CHAPTER III. 


ILKAU was sitting at the door of the inn 
M at Santa Theresa, where he had spent the 
night, and was studying nature as it woke 
up around him, when Lentz, coming out of his room, 
met him with a happy, jovial expression, slightly 
excited by the cool, subtle air. Milkau was glad to see 
his friend and greeted him with a kindly smile. Shortly 
after, they took a walk through the city, which was 
already fully awake and shining in its ingenuous simplic- 
ity. The doors and windows of the primitive, white- 
washed houses, opened in the bright sun-light like eyes 
that are waking up. . The little houses, of monotonous 
uniformity, lined the street and looked like dove-cots on 
the side of the mountain. Around the city, there was a 
green park studded with trees, through which flowed 
murmuring brooks that seemed the very soul of the land- 
scape. 

The two immigrants felt transformed by a soothing 
peace and by a consoling hope, as they contemplated the 
beautiful sight the city presented. They could see the 
people quietly working at the doors or inside the houses, 
and there the different trades were reborn with all the 
simplicity of their happy initiation. It was a small in- 
dustrial nucleus in the colony. While all around them, 
in the thick jungle, others wrestled with the earth, the 
inhabitants of the town were busy at their humble trades. 


[77] 


78 CANAAN 


Milkau and Lentz walked through the town listening 
to the lovely joyful music formed by the noises of toil. 
An old shoemaker, with long beard and very white hands, 
sat in his shop hammering on a piece of leather. Lentz 
found him as venerable as a saint. A tailor was ironing 
a coarse cloth; women were spinning and singing in their 
rooms; others were kneading dough to make bread; 
others with graceful movements were sifting corn flour 
for the fuba; always the same light manual work, hum- 
ble and sweet, without the shrill scream of steam and with 
no engines, except the contrivance for the bellows of the 
smith forge, which the water from a dam kept moving 
with a sonorous clatter. And all this blessed lively noise 
was in harmony with the rest. Even the hammering on 
the iron at the smithy harmonized with sounds of a 
clarionet with which the conductor of the band at Santa 
Theresa was giving the morning lesson to his pupils. 
There was inexpressible happiness in that primitive com- 
munity, in its retrogression to the beginning of the world. 
To Lentz’s passionate and exuberant spirit, this un- 
expected meeting with the past seemed like the revelation 
of a mystery. 

“This is heavenly,” he said, breaking the silence in 
which they had been walking. ‘These poor people 
modestly working with their own hands, these men who 
are not stained by coal smoke, who are not brutalized by 
the noise of machinery, who preserve the freshness of 
their souls, who are sufficient unto themselves, who sing 
while they make their bread and clothes . . . these people 
are simple and natural creatures, and creation with them 
is the happy satisfaction of the unconscious.” 

Milkau was also lost in admiration, proud of being a 





CANAAN 79 


man away up in that mountain where toil had its peace- 
fl setting; but as he discerned in Lentz’s praises the 
opposite emotion of his own mind, he observed: 

“Really, this is a wonderful picture we have before our 
eyes, and the spectacle of free and individual toil makes 
us drunk with pleasure. But, at bottom, we are only 
witnessing the beginning of a civilization; it is like a man 
who has not yet vanquished most of the forces of nature 
and merely stands at her side in a humble and servile 
attitude.” 

“But who can deny that man, the slave of machinery, 
is gradually sinking into a barbarism even worse than 
that of the savages?’’ replied Lentz. 

“As far as I am concerned, there is a mirage in that 
romantic sentiment. Yes, machinery, specializing and 
eliminating men, has deprived them of the perception of 
industry as a whole. To-day, however, when man has 
been transformed into a mechanism of peculiar motions, 
he has freed himself, has gained his intelligence, directing 
mechanisms which are almost on a level with workmen. 
We can not force the mass of civilization to go back to 
the old times of industry. The poetry in it is the mys- 
terious perfume of the past, towards which we turn with 
fear; but there is also poetry, more seductive, stronger, 
in the industrial life of to-day, and we must look at it 
from the proper view-point ... ” 

“Well,” replied Lentz, as he continued walking with 
Milkau, “I hold these people sacred; they are more 
worthy of my love than the army of proletarians, full of 
ambition, hungry and frightful, who are trying to govern 
the world. These people at any rate, are free from all 


80 CANAAN 


sins of pride, are kind and ingenuous, and carry their 
yoke with a smile.” 

They walked about for some time, feeling a curious 
difficulty in leaving the place. They walked along the 
roads that skirt the town. They sought the small eleva- 
tions, went up and down the park, stopped at the doors 
of the houses, watched the busy inmates, smiled at the 
children, and followed with their eyes the handsome 
girls, who blushed at their attentions. They amused 
themselves walking about at random, charmed by the sim- 
plicity of the natives which retained them in the little 
town for some time. But at last they had to tear them- 
selves away. The landlady’s daughter took them to the 
Timbuhy road. They detained her for a few moments 
with many questions, attracted by her delicate face 
and her beautiful red hair. Lentz saw in the girl 
a strange divinity of the green forest, a kindly divinity, 
like the other inhabitants of Santa Theresa. The girl 
stretched out her long arm, pointing the way to Milkau 
and Lentz, and they admired her gesture, her air, her 
gracefulness, and went away as if in a dream. 

At first they walked thoughtfully, without saying a 
word, as do those who travel towards the unknown. The 
road went up and down the deserted hills. The wide 
landscape, fertile and picturesque, offered a variety of 
aspects with its woods, valleys, forests, rivers, and water- 
falls. It was a stretch of one of the most opulent and 
most productive regions in Brazil. Within it was shel- 
tered the multitude of barbarians and foreigners, who 
had been received with kindliness and love. Milkau and 
Lentz passed several colonists’ houses, which they saw 
for the first time, and stood to admire these shelters 








CANAAN 81 


nestled in the green and peaceful abundance of the coun- 
tryside. The little houses were strung all along the 
valley, some sheltered by the projecting spurs of the hills, 
others perched on the slopes, and all of them gracefully 
arranged. 

One could see everywhere smoke rising from the chim- 
neys, women at their domestic duties, children and ani- 
mals under the trees, and men under the cool shadow of 
the coffee plantations that surround the dwellings. The 
two immigrants, in the silence of the road, united by a 
common hope and a common admiration, began to praise 
the Land of Canaan. 

They said that she was beautiful in her magnificent 
garments, dressed in sunshine and covered by a volup- 
tuous and endless blue cloak; that she was petted by 
nature. The waters of the river turn round and round 
her neck and bind her waist; the stars, lost in passionate 
admiration, pour upon her like the tears of some divine 
joy; flowers perfume her with their strange scents; birds 
sing her praises; gentle breezes play with her green hair; 
the sea, the wide sea, with the foam of its kisses, caresses 
her body eternally ... 

She was opulent because in her fantastic bosom is 
hidden an incalculable treasure, pure gold and brilliant 
stones; because her flocks suffice for the needs of her 
people and the fruits of her trees sweeten the bitterness 
of life; because one grain of her prolific soil would suf- 
fice to fertilize the whole world and would banish misery 
and hunger from among men. Oh! how powerful she 
“| an 

They said that in her love she tempers the rays of the 
sun with her shadows, and against the dew of the cold 


82 CANAAN 


night she offers the heat of her warm skin, and men find 
in her, so sweet and consoling, instant forgetfulness for 
the eternal agony. 

They said that she was happiest among the happy be- 
cause she was a mother who could provide for all,—the 
house of gold, the providence of carefree children, who 
would not exchange her for another, who would never 
leave her protecting skirts but would recompense her 
with loving, childish caresses and sing to her hymns with 
a joyful heart . 

They said that she was generous because she distri- 
butes her precious gifts among those who wish them; 
nobody is turned away from her door, her riches have no 
owner; she is not disturbed by ambition or pride; her 
soft, divine eyes see no petty distinctions, her maternal 
bosom is opened to all like a warm comfortable shelter . . 
O cherished hope of ours! 

They sang these and other “Beales as they walked 
along in the sunshine . 

They had been Peele five hours from Santa 
Theresa, when they arrived at the banks of the Doce 
river. They hardly had time to take a look around, for 
the surveyor, Felicissimo, issuing from a green shed 
located there, came to them with the brown triangle of 
his face lit up by a broad, kindly smile. 

“Upon my word,” he shouted from a distance, “this 
is a fine time to arrive.” 

And without waiting for an answer, he went to meet 
the two Germans, with his hands outstretched... It 
seemed to Milkau that he was the good genius of the 
native race which ruled over the land and was appearing 
to them full of joy and hospitality. 





CANAAN 83 


“Ah! my friend,” exclaimed Lentz, “we very nearly 
stayed kneeling down in the road, adoring your wonder- 
ful country.” 

“There is no doubt about it; this is a real paradise,” 
assented the surveyor enthusiastically. 

Milkau and Lentz very excitedly began to tell him 
their first impressions. Felicissimo, however, interrupt- 
ed them, impelled by his hospitable instinct. 

“Where are you going to lunch? I could get you 
something here to appease your hunger... ” 

“Thanks very much,” said Milkau. “Just as we left 
Santa Theresa we ate a few things we had brought with 
us, and afterwards, on the road, we had a lot of oranges 
from the orchard of an old woman colonist. We even 
brought you some. Look how beautiful they are.’ 

“That’s nothing,” answered the surveyor, taking the 
oranges. “Don’t waste your admiration, for there 
are many things that will make you stand with your 
mouths open. Look here, there is no part of Brazil like 
this one, in everything!” 

They walked to a shed covered with corrugated iron, 
where the surveyor had his office. It was arranged in 
the simplest of fashions; at one side, several agricultural 
implements; on the table, two or three large folios which 
contained a register of lots rented to the colonists, and on 
the wall, a large map showing the lots of land of the dis- 
trict. Not even one book, nor a humble picture, nor a 
photograph; only a bundle of newspapers to satisfy the 
curiosity of the surveyor. Felicissimo had in the same 
shed his bedroom, which was of nomadic simplicity. 
Near by, there was a larger shed which was used as lodg- 
ings by the immigrants while they were building their 


84 CANAAN 


houses on the lots they had acquired. It was roomy and 
arranged like a ward in a hospital, and at one end of it 
there was a small kitchen. Felicissimo, however, made 
an exception of the two foreigners and entertained them 
in the shed where he had his office. His guests thanked 
the obliging Brazilian, and, sitting in the bedroom, they 
engaged in a lengthy conversation from which they 
learned much about the place. At last the sur- 
veyor, seeing that the sun had lowered, said to them: 

“Come on, friends! Let us go and choose the lots.” 

They passed into the office, and looked at the map, 
which he had taken from the wall. He went on: 

“T have an idea that number ten would suit you best. 
The land there must be splendid. The devil of it is that it 
is located right in the thick of the jungle and it’ll take a lot 
of work to clear it up .. But I really think it worth while.” 

And Felicissimo, with a little stick in his hand to point 
at the map, looked at the other two eagerly. Milkau, 
without bothering in the least about the selection, and 
through deference to the opinion of the surveyor, readily 
accepted the proposal. He felt happy in this glorious 
day with the mirage of the great and glorious labor ahead 
of him. 

They got ready to go out. When they reached the 
door, Felicissimo looked at the sky with the air of a con- 
noisseur, reflected a little and said to his companions: 

“Tt is quite a bit from here to the lot. We could not 
get there and back before dark. But if you insist...” 

“Not at all,’ answered Lentz. “Let it go until to- 
morrow.” 

The travelers felt a sweet torpor caused by the jour- 
ney, and lying down on the turf near the house, they 





CANAAN 85 


listened to the stories of the surveyor, pondered on vague 
things, and watched the river lazily flowing by... 

A group of men armed with agricultural implements 
appeared in the distance. They approached slowly, 
dragging themselves along the deserted road on the river 
bank. Perceiving at a distance that there were new- 
comers, they walked silently under the reserved and 
sinister impulse which is the first advance of man towards 
man... When they arrived, they saluted half-heartedly 
and went silently into the store to lock up their tools. 
Felicissimo, seeing that they were passing in such a queer 
fashion, was greatly surprised and shouted to them: 

“Hallo, friends! Is the ditch finished?” 

“All done!’ they answered with one voice, which was 
a combination of all their voices, and they looked at each 
other, frightened at having answered in chorus. 

Milkau and Lentz admired the strength of these men 
of iron hands, herculean torso, red beards, and sky-blue 
eyes, who resembled each other like a group of brothers. 
There was one young mulatto among them, and he could 
be distinguished easily. His face was pitted with small- 
pox ; his complexion was bronzed; he wore a short, curly 
beard and his short hair stood upright on his head. With 
his bloodshot eyes and his teeth, pointed like those of a 
saw, he had at times the appearance of an evil satyr. But 
that impression was not frequent and it quickly disap- 
peared in an easy, ingenuous smile. In the midst of 
the mass of his red, heavy companions, the Brazilian 
goat? had a victorious, spiritualized air. Was there not, 
after all, a remote connection between him and the land, 


1Goat is the name given in Brazil to a half-caste of a Negro 
and an Indian. 


86 CANAAN 


perpetuated by the blood and transmitted from genera- 
tion to generation? 

By and by the men came cautiously where the strang- 
ers were and silently listened to their conversation. Just 
as the sun was setting, turning the waters of the river 
blood-red, Felicissimo pointed to the sky, showing Lentz 
and Milkau the flocks of birds which were flying in the 
twilight, passing along in thin graceful lines. 

“My! ... what a shot I could have at those birds!” 
exclaimed the mulatto, enjoying, not without some melan- 
choly, the picture which his imagination, that of an 
inveterate hunter, presented to him. 

“Get out, Joca, you couldn’t hit one of them, you 
goat...” said Felicissimo, in German, laughing at him. 

The man laughed. 

“I bet you I could,” replied the mulatto pompously. 
“If I had a good gun, there wouldn’t be one bird left 
flying. I know how to aim... and if the gun had a good 
reach ... you would see me...” 

The birds continued to fly together, serene and proud 
in their flight. Other flocks could be seen in the distance 
... Joca looked at them and followed them with his eyes 
regretfully. 

Lentz admired the facility with which the mulatto 
could speak German, although he interspersed his phrases 
with Brazilian words. And addressing the Germans, he 
asked them if they could speak Portuguese. They 
answered that they could not, and Felicissimo added: 

“Listen, don’t be surprised at that, for these men have 
been in the colony only one year. But there are people 
who have been here over thirty years and can’t speak 
one single word of Brazilian. It is adarn shame. What 





a 


CANAAN 87 


happens is that all our cattle men and laborers learn Ger- 
man. I don’t know. There is no people like ours to 
learn foreign languages . . . I think it must be a natural 
eriti 2" 

Joca agreed with the surveyor, and added that he 
himself could speak more German than his own native 
tongue, and he also had a smattering of Polish and 
Italian. In his innermost thoughts, Lentz felt some 
pleasure at these testimonials of the inability of the 
Brazilian people to impose their own language upon other 
men. This weakness, would it not be like a breach 
through which the Germanic ambitions would in the 
future take possession of this magnificent country? And 
he pondered on this idea, with his eyes wide open and 
shining. 

“The day is not far,” said Milkau, “when the Brazilian 
language will dominate the land. The case of the 
colonies is a mere accident, due in great part to their 
segregation from the native population. I won’t deny 
that foreign languages will have a great influence upon 
the native tongue, but from this mixture will result a 
language whose basis and whose character will be those 
of the Portuguese, ingrained into the soul of the popu- 
lation for centuries, fixed in their poetry and preserved 
for future generations by a literature which is determined 
to live.” .. . (And he smiled, looking at Lentz). “We 
will be the losers.” 

This pleased Felicissimo. Joca, who had only caught 
the last phrase, looked with a superior air at his German 
fellow-workers. The prophecy imbued him already with 
the pride of a conqueror. 

They were thus amicably talking, when a thin, tall man 


88 CANAAN 


passed along the road, close to the river, armed with a 
gun and carrying on his back a dead animal dripping with 
blood, which Joca declared was a “paca,” a kind of wild 
boar. The hunter was accompanied by a pack of hounds 
which preceded or surrounded him, all heated up, their 
ears cocked or hanging down, exhausted with the hunt, 
their mouths open and their tongues hanging out, 
tremulous, nervous, panting, burning the cool air with 
their ardent and restless breathing, in a combustion 
which enveloped them in a cloud of vapor. The hunter 
walked with a hasty step, and the dogs accompanied 
him barking, excited by the blood which flowed from 
the prey. 

“Ah!” exclaimed Joca, sorrowfully, “if we could get 
one like that for our pot!” 

The hunter passed without saluting them. 

“He is a savage,” said Felicissimo. 

“Does he live around here?” asked Milkau. 

“He is our nearest neighbor, but he never salutes us, 
all the same . . . He passes us as if we were dogs...” 
answered Joca. 

“He must be some hermit,” suggested Lentz. 

“A misanthrope,” explained the surveyor. “He never 
speaks with any one that I know of, and lives alone with 
those dogs, which are as ferocious as tigers.” 

The old man continued on his way, unconcerned by 
the group of men who were observing him, until he was 
lost in the jungle. 

They continued to talk about the singular life led by the 
hunter, when one of the men approached Felicissimo and 
informed him that they could start their supper. They 
got up from the turf, some stretching their arms, some 





CANAAN 89 


yawning, and slowly and quietly they all entered the 
house. 

The workers arranged the table for their meals in the 
immigrants’ dormitory, and it was there that they had 
their supper. The meal was poor and simple, salt fish 
and dried meat, which is the food common to men of their 
occupations, and all enjoyed themselves, some quietly, 
others, like Felicissimo and Joca, lively and loquacious. 
Lentz looked at the two races gathered at the table. He 
admired the solidity and heaviness in the German giants, 
while the interminable empty talk of the surveyor and 
the mulatto produced in him the nausea of seasickness. 

Meanwhile, Milkau was pleasant to everybody, and 
glad to see this mixture of races, foreseeing a bright 
future for the guests of a table which seemed like a 
relic from patriarchal times. 

The room was lighted by a kerosene lamp. Its light was 
gloomy and shaky but strong enough to enable the new 
colonists to distinguish the face of each worker, who, 
so far, had been confused in a single mass. Some were 
matured men, experienced in long suffering, others were 
newcomers and young, generally strong, and exhibiting in 
their movements an indolent calmness, and in their eyes 
a longing for repose. They ate also in the same way, 
slowly and cautiously. Besides the general uniformity 
of their class, a long intimacy had given them many 
points of resemblance. 

Milkau enjoyed himself talking to his countrymen, 
asking them where each came from. Nearly all of them 
came from East Prussia, from Pomerania; there were, 
however, some who came from the banks of the Rhine. 


90 CANAAN 


“Where are you from?” inquired Milkau of the nearest 
workman. 

“From Germersheim.” 

“Then we are almost neighbors, for I came from 
Heidelberg.” 

The workman smiled, happy to have found a country- 
man; but his happiness only found expression in a pain- 
fully incomplete gesture, like his own mind. To Milkau, 
a countryman was the sudden and unexpected apparition 
of his own past. An incomprehensible remembrance of 
his first years mortified him for a few moments; it was 
like repentance at not having been in his first years the 
same man he was to-day. It was a desire to go back, 
to begin anew, to pay in love all the indifference he had 
shown for the things of his country, for the men of his 
city, for the surroundings, in fact, where he had spent 
his silent youth. ' 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, musingly. “Then you are from 
the land of Sister Martha! Do you know the Rock of 
the Nun?” 

see > 

Lentz asked if that had anything to do with any 
legend. And Milkau asked the workman to relate the 
tradition, unknown by the rest of the company. They 
all turned round to the immigrant from the Rhine. 

The man remained for a second astonished and 
embarrassed, unwilling to emerge from the obscure and 
collective anonymity in which he had remained at the 
table. At first he did not say a word, merely shook his 
head. 

Joca, for whom a moment's silence was perturbing and 


CANAAN 91 


painful, turned round to his German companion with 


wrathful eyes. 

“Out with it, man alive! Is it a secret?” shouted the 
goat. 

The German at last decided to speak, looking timor- 
ously at the other men, scared at finding himself in such 
a prominent position. 

In his own uncouth language, he told how at the 
time of the crusades, a newly married duke had to leave 
his wife and go to fight for the Cross. His bride 
remained inconsolable at the separation, and fearing that 
her husband might die, she made a vow that if she saw 
him again, their first-born would be dedicated to the 
service of God. The duke returned, and after some 
time, a daughter was born to them and they called her 
Martha. The child was of astonishing beauty, and the 
neighbors of the nobility, who wanted her as wife for 
their sons, were very sorry to see her born dead to the 
world. Hardly had Martha reached her girlhood when 
she entered a convent, where her piety, even more than 
her wonderful beauty, charmed everyone. The duke 
died in another crusade and the widow, with no other 
children, remained alone in the castle. Her only comfort 
was her daughter, who, from time to time, came to see 
her, dressed as a nun. One day, when she was crossing the 
wood on one of her consoling visits, she happened to meet 
a young hunter, son of a Palatine count. Charmed by 
her beauty, the lad fell madly in love with the Sister and 
followed her silently to the castle. He struggled with 
himself to smother his criminal passion, but in vain, and 
overcome by desire, he planned to kidnap the nun. One 
afternoon, disguised as a peasant, the young count 


92 CANAAN 


knocked at the door of the convent to tell Martha that 
the duchess was at death’s door. The sister at once set 
out for her mother’s home. The count accompanied her 
and when they arrived at a lonely spot, he revealed 
his identity, explained his stratagem and asked her to 
flee with him and hide their love in other lands. The 
virtuous Martha, frantic with terror, starts to run. The 
lad, blind with passion, pursues her. They run like mad 
through the forest. The Sister, losing her way, takes a 
road which leads away from the castle, and in the fury 
of her flight arrives at the river, where the count almost 
seizes her . . . A big rock opens up and the young nun 
takes shelter within its cavity. The count could not 
believe that God was thus protecting the nun, and he 
stubbornly waited until Martha should come out. He 
remained there days and days, living close to the rock. 
From within, instead of curses, came the echo of the sup- 
plications of the nun for the salvation of her malefactor’s 
soul. Months and years passed; the count grew old, his 
white beard reached down to his feet, and finally his 
heart, softened by the nun’s prayers, was freed from 
temptation, and penitent and converted, he sang hymns 
which Martha taught him from within the inviolable 
rock. He swore then to consecrate himself to the 
service of God, and with the intention of founding a 
religious order, he bade good-bye to the nun with tears 
of repentance. He went away, old and full of the divine 
spirit. The rock opened up again and Martha came out 
as young as when she had entered it. Comforted and fed 
by the angels, time had not passed for her, and she 
had the illusion that she had spent but one day within 
the rock-prison. Confused and timid, she departed for 


CANAAN 93 
r 

the convent. During her absence the nuns, hearing in 
her cell a celestial voice, spent all the time kneeling down 
at the door, charmed, hypnotized by the melody, praying 
in ecstasies. When Sister Martha left the rock, the 
voice ceased in her cell, and the sisters, free from the 
spell which had kept them at the door, returned to their 
usual occupations. Martha ran to the convent, and on 
her way the season, which was winter, changed into 
spring, and the flowers opened up in the desolate fields . . 
She went into the convent and found everything as she 
had left it years before ... Time had not passed there 
either. The nun threw herself at the feet of the mother 
superior, explaining the danger she had run during her 
absence. The poor mother told her that she must have 
suffered a moment of hallucination, for she had never 
left her cell, where she had been singing the most beauti- 
ful praises to God. Astounded at her words, Martha 
went to her cell whence at that very moment issued an 
angel who had taken her place during her absence and 

who was her very image. 
The supper ended under the vague spell which the evo- 
cation of the native legend had cast on the workers. 
One by one they got up and left the room. They 
gathered outside, in the open, to enjoy the coolness of the 
night. Milkau and Lentz also joined them, and in the 
solitude they felt more and more drawn towards each 
other. The men lay down on the turf, looking towards 
the river which seemed like a phosphorescent tremulous 
band from which radiated the only light which pierced 
the blackness of the night. The conversation was slow 
and broken, stumbling on uncertain subjects, for each 
mind was absorbed by an idea which had taken possession 


94 CANAAN 


of it. And one of the men was the common interpreter 
when he said: 

“There are a good many enchantments in this world 
of God ... We must always be ready, for no one knows 
what sufferings there are in store. There is danger when 
you least expect it...” 

The others thoughtfully assented with a murmur, and 
they fell into a deep silence. Lentz tried to raise their 
spirits, and he began to deny that there were any witches, 
miracles or enchantments. He spoke at length, but could © 
not shake the convictions which centuries had rooted in 
their minds. And when he finished by saying: “The 
witches have all died long ago and they always were the 
same women that you love,” one of the older men did not 
like his tone and replied: 

“Don’t say that, young man. Men ought to be careful 
whom they love. How many misfortunes have hap- 
pened because men have trusted the voices and songs of 
women...” 

Each one recalled some story of his native town. There, 
in the middle of a tropical land, were summoned by the 
evocations of the immigrant heroes, Saxon demi- 
gods, nymphs from the Rhine, giants with their corteges 
of fantastic dwarfs. The two Brazilians were intensely 
interested in these stories from an unknown world which 
brought to their minds similar European stories handed 
down to them and adulterated by the whites who had 
contributed to the formation of their half-caste breed. 
But now the legends came straight from their origin, 
purer, clearer, with their character unpolluted by foreign 
contact; and how they enjoyed the story of the wonder- 
ful deeds of Siegfried, son of Sigisbert, and his feats at 





CANAAN 95 


fr 
the castle of Niebelung, his fight with the giant, the de- 
feat of the dwarf Alberic, keeper of untold treasures, 
and then his fights, his struggles with the witch Brun- 
hilde, queen of Iceland, in which, thanks to his charmed 
head-piece, he fought invisible, vanquishing the woman 
to return her to her husband, until one day the hero died, 
run through by a lance which found his only vulnerable 
spot ... And with what eagerness they listened to the 
story of the beautiful Lorelei, now kindly inclined, 
protecting the men of her neighborhood, now vengeful, 
making the waters of the Rhine to open up and swallow 
the daring men who attempted to gaze at her mysterious 
face and who, before dying, became demented listening 
to her songs ... In that story was related the passion 
of the Palatine count for the fairy, charmed by her magic 
voice, until one day, finding Lorelei on a rock with the 
lyre in her hand, he fainted and she carried him away 
to her crystal palace at the bottom of the blue waters... 
And the despair that seized the castle, the father madly 
looking for his son until, finding the nymph, he asked her 
to return his son to him, and she, proud, divine as a 
symbol, answered as she struck her harp: “My smiling 
crystal palace is in the bosom of the waves, and there, 
far away from your world I have carried my faithful, 
loyal lover...” 

When the story ended, some of the men began to make 
comments suggested by their foggy ideas. Joca declared 
that he was not afraid of the mother of the waters. As 
the others made fun of him, he insisted petulantly: 

“You don’t feel afraid of any women, devils or witches, 
after you have had dealings with Currupira.” 

To Milkau there seemed a rare and beautiful accent in 


96 CANAAN 


that term; he thought it was one of those words of the 
Brazilian language, rich in sound, which have been 
grafted on to the old tongue, but as he did not know its 
meaning or the native legend attached to it, he asked the . 
mulatto in a familiar tone: 

“Tell us all about it, Joca!” 

“Ah!” he answered, getting ready to tell his story, “it 
wasn’t around here, it was in Maranhao. That’s where 
I belong to ... My uncle, Manuel Pereira, in the estate 
of Pindoba!, used to tell me: ‘My lad, you’d better stop 
those trips through the jungle to see your girl, for one 
fine day Currupira’ll get you ... Take care!’ I wasa 
careless daredevil, with plenty of nerve, and laughed at 
the old man’s words. ‘Now, uncle! stop trying to 
frighten me. I am not a coward... Currupira is only a 
myth!’ And Uncle Manuel Pereira used to go on and 
tell me some stories and always finished up this way: ‘My © 
lad! take care.’ One day we had just taken the cattle — 
into the corral. My horse was dead tired with rounding 
up a wild steer, which I finally brought in at the end of 
my lasso, after a hard struggle ... As soon as we arrived 
I got off Ventania, who, sweating and with his back 
half-broken, went away to graze ... My uncle shouted 
to me to come to supper ... The sun had cooled when 
we sat down at the table, my uncle, who was the chief 
cattle man at the state, and we four, his assistants .. . 
The goats were so hungry that they scared my aunt. 
‘Now, boys! You seem to be hungrier than the devil,’ 
she said as she was serving us. ‘Good gracious!’ The 
fact remains that the curimatas quickly disappeared, not 
a banana was left behind either, and we wound up the 
feast with a good drink of branca. At that hour the cows 











CANAAN" 97 


were bellowing to break your heart, licking the calves 
that pushed towards them on the other side of the fence. 
I was as tired as could be. . . The others were just as 
tired as I. But Manuel Formosa, he goes and says to 
me: “Don’t you know that there is a dance at Mary Bene- 
dicta’s?’? Oh! what a head I have! I had clean forgot- 
ten about our appointment ... The Saturday before I had 
arranged to meet Chiquinha Rosa at the dance. I was 
madly in love with the wench; a lass tall as a palm tree, 
with a head as delicate as a dove. A great desire to see 
Chinquinha seized me and roused me entirely. 

“All right! Come on, Manuel...’ 

“But Formosa excused himself with some lies ; you had 
only to hear him to know that he had business somewhere 
else . . . The other fellows were old and married and 
were not in for any fun. I was quite disheartened for 
a while, but the thought of the girl gave my body new 
strength ... Ah! my blood, keep still. ‘Well, seeing that 
no one will come with me, I shall go alone, for my 
father’s son will not miss a chance of enjoying himself,’ 
I said rather crossly to the lazy goats. 

“T got up to go to the pond, and uncle Pereira, who 
opposed me in everything, began to growl: ‘Lad, you are 
not well. Don’t take a bath at this hour of the day or 
you'll get sick. Then there’ll be more work for the 
others.’ 

“T didn’t pay any attention to the old man’s talk and I 
went to the pond. It was quite light as I plunged into 
the water and it chilled me to the very bones. I splashed 
and kicked the water to scare away any yacares that 
might be prowling in the vicinity. I went in a hurry to 
my ranch to change my clothes. I put on a white shirt 


98 "CANAAN 


and white pants, and I tied round my neck a red muffler 
which I had bought from a sailor at the port. I knocked 
at Aunt Benta’s door and asked her for a little of her 
perfumed pomade, and in two ticks I was ready. 
Chiquinha had my white muffler from the previous week, 
for I had left it with her so that she could carry it in her 
bosom and scent it with the perfume of her own body. 
She was going to give it back to me at the dance. Uncle 
Pereira, seeing me ready to start, said to me: ‘Come back 
as soon as you can, for early to-morrow morning, as soon 
as the moon sets, we are going for provisions to the 
estate of Marambaia.’ ‘All right, uncle, don’t be afraid. 
I’ll be back in good time and I'll wake you up in the 
morning.’ 

“I didn’t want any more talk with the old man and I 
started on my way as fast as an ostrich. From Pindobal 
to Mary Benedicta’s house, is a good two hours’ walk. 
I crossed our fields intending to reach the point at 
Guariba, and I remember as if it were to-day that 
everything was dry, and the few lean cattle that stood 
around had the sad eyes of a dead fish and looked 
towards the setting sun. You could only hear the grunts 
of some swine that were digging up manioc with their 
snouts. When I arrived at the point I went into the 
store of Joseph, the sailor. “Well, Joca, where are you 
going all dressed up?’ the Portuguese asked me. ‘To 
dance a little at Mary Benedicta’s.’ ‘Listen, a lot of 
young people passed here to-day. There'll be a lot of 
people at the dance. And there’ll be plenty to drink, for 
I have sent it all... by order of Mr. Peter Tupinamba 
... you know.’ 

“T don’t know whether Sailor Joe’s talk heated my 





CANAAN 99 


blood a little more, but I felt everything turning round, 
my heart wanted to jump out of my mouth and my legs 
were giving way under me... But I made an effort and 
stood up courageously, and in a little while I was able 
to say to the landlord: ‘I am in a hurry to get there, but 
people should not take advantage of others; they should 
carry their own provisions. Please give me one quart of 
restillo and cut me two ropes of chewing tobacco.’ 

“He did as I asked and I started on my way again. 
The sun had already set and the glow-worms were begin- 
ning to fly about in the still air, but their light was quite 
unnecessary, for the moon was lighting everything. I 
started on a path through a coppice which considerably 
shortened the way to the house. The sand was warmer 
there than in the open fields; a great heat ran through 
my body; I walked, I walked; the lizards ran shaking the 
leaves and, from time to time, a woodpecker, perched on 
a tree-stump, struck the evening hours. There was no 
living soul around, and I was breathing the dust which I 
was raising in my hurry to get to the house. I was 
afraid I was going to find all the couples arranged, and 
that Chiquinha, tired of waiting for me, had got a partner 
for the night. Shake a leg! I said to myself. My head, 
however, was in bad shape, it seemed as if it were going 
to burst, and I felt very sick in my stomach. 

“In the middle of the jungle there was a clearing, and 
it seemed to me that a form was moving towards me. 
However, I didn’t attach any importance to this and I 
said to myself: ‘It must be Sailor Joe’s son going home 
because his father won’t allow him to go to the dance.’ 
Suddenly I heard a sharp whistle behind me. ‘Some 
friend,’ I thought, ‘who is going to the dance and is 


100 CANAAN 


calling me to wait for him.’ I turned my head, but I 
didn’t see anyone. I looked again and saw nothing. I 
went on my way ... Another whistle came, piercing my 
ears, another, and another; they seemed to be whistling 
from everywhere, from the thick of the jungle, from the 
road, from over the trees. ‘What a flock of owls there 
must be around here... it must be an ill omen.’ A cold 
shiver ran through me, and to gain courage I thought of 
the meeting with Sailor Joe’s son. But I looked in vain 
ahead of me; I saw no one. ‘Where has the little devil 
gone to?’ The whistling kept up around me, my 
head was dizzy and my heart was beating furiously. 
Again I saw the youngster in front of me; I took a good 
look at him, for I was quite close, but he wasn’t the son 
of the Portuguese. ‘I bet I don’t know this kid.’ We 
stood about one hundred yards from each other, when 
the little one disappeared again. The whistling of the 
owls went on all the time. I muttered: ‘What on earth 
is that kid doing, disappearing now and again? This is 
no good.’ And he appeared again. Then I shouted in 
a frightsome voice, to scare the goat: ‘What sort of 
conversation is that? Why do you keep making faces 
at me?’ He said nothing; but why should I have spoken? 
The whole jungle began to whistle like the devil and I 
was scared to death with the noise. The little devil was 
now about ten yards from me. My blood boiled; my 
head burned. I'll tell you what I did; I just made for 
him blind with rage. ‘You devil! You'll pay me for 
this!’ I raised my stick . .. but when I recovered my 
senses, some one was holding me by the wrists. ‘Let go!’ 
I yelled. The little devil was looking at me with his 
blood-shot eyes. ‘Let go!’ But I was held firm. I 


CANAAN IOI 


moved towards the goat with more rage than when I 
fought Anthony Pimenta, once when we were branding 
cattle. I remembered how many brave bulls I had 
knocked down, and to find myself now fooled by a kid! 
We struggled up and down; I hit his face with my head, 
I kicked his shins with my feet, but he always stood up, 
hard as nails, the ugly monkey! After a few minutes 
I heard a thundering roar, the roar of a jaguar; ah! I 
thought the wicked one was going to let me go. But 
things got worse, for the roar was echoed all over; the 
wild boars came snapping their jaws, wild cats miauled; 
I heard the rattle-snake rattling away ... In a moment I 
fell to the ground with the little blackguard atop of me. 
All the beasts hustied in the jungle and came towards us; 
the very trees bent down making fun of me; the hawks, 
the urubus, came to scent my carcass ...I felt a terrible 
fear and my strength abandoned me. I began to shiver 
with cold, and the sweat made my clothes stick to me. 
‘Oh! . . . blessed St. John . . . I am going to die!’ I 
exclaimed. And my eyes closed as if I were dead... I 
was half unconscious for a long time, feeling the beasts, 
commanded by my devilish antagonist, prowling about 
me... Then peace fell over everything; my fists were 
once more free; a great heat burned my body; I opened 
my eyes cautiously . . . everything stood still . . . all the 
beasts had disappeared, and the moon shone as if it had 
been midday. I was tired with the struggle . . . my 
tongue was as hard and dry as that of a parrot. I 
opened my eyes wide, and didn’t see either the little devil 
or the beasts. But I felt a great fear and tried to get 
away from the place. I passed my hand around me, 
looking for my bottle of restillo and the ropes of tobacco. 


102 CANAAN 


To waken up thoroughly, there is nothing like a drink of 
eau-de-vie and a good chew . . . But I couldn’t find a 
thing. I searched and searched. Nothing. I began to 
think that perhaps the fight with the kid was because of 
my bottle. I remembered some words of my old Uncle 
Pereira: ‘If Currupira tackles you, give him right away 
what you have, drink and tobacco.’ And then I knew 
that I had had to do with Currupira. I got up with a 
jump. I wanted to run to Mary Benedicta; the dance 
must have been at its best then. I looked ahead, but the 
road ended far away, very far away. I was afraid of a 
new encounter. I turned back, walking as if I were 
drunk, falling here and there. I went out into the fields 
bumping up against the cattle; my eyes burned, my blood 
beat as if it were going to burst out; my tongue was 
thick and I felt as thirsty as a tortoise . . . but in spite of 
all, I arrived somehow at the door of my ranch. I didn’t 
want to talk to anyone, so I threw myself into the ham- 
mock, which moved with my body as if it had been a 
canoe at the Boqueirao... 

“I woke up when I heard people talking at the door. 
It was the voices of my uncle and of Formoso. They 
opened the door and the light of the dawn shone in my 
room. 

““Time to get up, Joca! Come on!’ 

“T tried to get up, but my forces failed me. The old 
man steadied the hammock with his hand, for it was 
swinging quite a lot. My body shook as if all my bones 
were having a dance. My uncle told Formoso to open 
the door and the windows, and the room was flooded with 
sunlight. He placed his hand on my forehead and I 








CANAAN 103 


opéned my eyes that were full of fire, and Uncle Pereira 
grumbled : 

““Didn’t I tell you? You got it all right! Why 
should you have gone and had a bath when you were so 
tired? and at that hour too!’ 

“T didn’t answer. I was too mad to tell the old man 
that I had been up against the Currupira.”’ 

After this yarn, the colonists sat thoughtful, without 
saying a word. Each one went back to the beginning of 
his life, and the remembrance of the past filled his soul 
with shadows and regrets. 

Felicissimo noticed that it was late and advised them 
to retire, he himself being the first one to get up from 
the grass. The others stood up yawning, for sleep was 
already caressing them. From the Doce river and from 
the neighboring forest came sweet murmurings, and the 
silent colonists interpreted these nocturnal sounds either 
as the voices of the mothers of the waters, yearning for 
the love of men, or as the noise caused by the forays of 
the wandering Currupira. 

In the dormitory the workers snored in their beds 
stretched on the floor, but Joca tossed restlessly about, 
without being able to sleep. There was no sleep for him 
that night. His throat was parched, his skin was burning, 
and he found no rest in his soft, cosy bed. In the middle 
of the forest of the Doce river, entirely foreign to his 
eyes and his heart, the remembrance of his native land 
made him recall the scenes of the days spent in the place 
where he had been born, in those fields of Cajapio, so 
inconstant and variable, whose mobility transmitted 
itself to the plastic souls of the men brought up in them. 
Joca considered himself a foreigner in Espirito-Santo; 


104 CANAAN 


the mountains seemed to crush him, the narrow defiles 
filled him with terror, and an irresistible longing carried 
him back to the vast plains where he had lived. In 
summer he could see the grass all burned up. The 
violent love of the sun scorched the fields until not a 
blade of green grass was to be seen; and everywhere there 
was drought, death. Not a drop of water; the sad arid 
desert, and through it, like a never ending snake, the trail 
worn by the foot of man and the hoofs of animals... On 
clear, cloudless days, when everybody is praying for 
rain, the earth and the sky merge into each other at the 
horizon. At other times, the clouds descend till they 
almost reach the earth; the yellow sun tinges them with 
colors, and mirages are formed, narrowing down the field 
of vision, shutting everything up into a limited space, and 
the traveler follows the mirages, which flee unattainable, 
making evolutions like an army in an open field. And in 
this way the mobility of the sky lends some charm to 
the inmovable sterility of the earth ... Not a drop of 
water to refresh even the sight. Here and there, like a 
moving skeleton, passes a hungry ox, rattling his bones 
with a harsh, muffled sound ... Herds of swine dig up 
the earth with their snouts, eating up the snakes which 
stretch themselves, oily and happy, in the sun .. . Herds 
of cattle appear in the horizon, as if they had suddenly 
emerged from the ground, galloping madly and sniffing 
the air, crazy with thirst. They pass along like a 
cyclone, raising the quiet dust which, disturbed in its 
repose, follows them, envelops them, and chokes them, 
implacable, swift and red like a column of fire... 

At the remembrance of those immigrations of cattle, 
Joca felt a shiver through his body and a desire seized 





CANAAN 105 
r 

him to rise from his couch where he was violently tossing 
about. And the vision of the land with its plains was 
always before his eyes. It was now just after the first 
rains had drenched the fields. One morning, away in 
Cajapio—Joca could remember it as if it had been the 
night before—he had got up after a terrific storm, towards 
the end of summer. There was plenty of dew, but the 
morning was calm, and he got up from his hammock 
to take a look at the weather. A great carpet of damp 
fresh grass seemed to have fallen from heaven and to 
have covered, as with a mysterious cloak, the parched 
fields of the previous evening ... The joyful fields 
extended as far as the eye could see; the cattle celebrated 
the coming back of life, ravenously eating the tender 
grass; a flock of ducks passed overhead, alighting here 
and there; to resume their flight again in search of the 
lake region . .. For days the rain fell; the grass was now 
thick and the water seemed to be drowning it. When 
later on the flood ceased, one could see in the vast green 
plain, clear spots which were like a rest to the eyes. They 
were the first lakes, and around them a multitude of 
aquatic birds disported themselves, displaying their 
feathers of warm, bright colors. The birds came from 
all the points of the compass: flamingoes with crooked 
bills, noisy ducks, graceful and timid jassanans. And 
in the afternoon, when the sky was covered with grey 
clouds, one could see the flocks of red and martial guaras, 
or the virginal, white wings of the cranes . . . In the 
bottom of the lakes appeared, as if by magic, a school 
of fish. And in everything there was the same miracle 
of resurrection, the same return to youth, the same 
expansion, the same life ... But the rains continue and 


106 CANAAN 


the waters, forever swelling, flood the fields. The cattle 
get restless, and there begins another emigration, the 
winter one, towards the plateaus or little elevations in the 
plains. They go along slowly, heavily, walking on the 
strips of dry land, or in the water, or swimming, but 
never turning back, always going ahead towards the 
shelters. By the middle of winter the water has obliter- 
ated the plain almost entirely, and only here and there 
an island appears where the cattle crowd against each 
other. The arid, burning desert of a few months ago has 
been converted into an enormous, peaceful lake. On 
it float the big nenuphars, and numerous aquatic plants, 
long and green, drift on the waters like gulls. Life was 
changed ; the horse was in the stable and Joca pushed his 
canoe along, while his tall slim figure was reflected on 
the surface of the tranquil waters ... : 

Milkau meditated while he waited for sleep to take him 
to the land of forgetfulness. He had enjoyed the legends 
he had heard from the workers; it seemed to him that 
he had pushed aside the veil which covered the souls of 
these men and felt a delicious pleasure in the contempla- 
tion of the pictures offered by their different minds and 
in recalling the panoramas formed by each creative 
people while still in their infancy. In the German 
legends he could see the Rhine flowing by like a great 
sacred river which was the center and nerve of the 
Germanic world, full of enchantment, and whose red 
haired nymphs were the foam of its very waters. He 
saw the pictures of the remote past and those of medieval 
times with their witches, knights-errant and castles. All 
the idealism of the race was there, and what was born 
from the waters of the river, forming fantasies and 





CANAAN 107 

r 
myths, still remained unalterable. The new Latin gods, 
penetrating its spirit, had become transmuted into bar- 
baric divinities; its saints were the same fairies of the 
Rhine and the same old gloomy, warlike gods .. . In the 
legend of Currupira, another world unfolded itself, and 
it was the very soul of the catthkeman from Maranhao. 
There was the shadowy jungle, the astonishing, eternal 
power of nature whose symbol is that wandering divinity 
which animates the trees, which shakes the beasts from 
their tropical torpor and protects nature from its per- 
petual enemy, man, scaring him away. She is awesome, 
vengeful or kindly, disguises herself in a thousand 
manners, as an evil being, which is her favorite imperson- 
ation, as an animal or a tree, according as cunning and 
force counsel... Milkau felt that these legends present- 
ed all the various aspects of superstition, betraying the 
instincts, desires and habits of the different men. A 
charmed and mysterious world is that of the souls of 
peoples! The true philosopher, thought Milkau, will be 
he who shall know the origin, not only of history and of 
society, but of one single soul; he who shall have the 
secret of weighing minds, of reading in the cellules of 
one brain, the remote, vital sensations of a people, and 
who shall have the intuition necessary to distinguish in 
the intelligence of one man the exact proportions of vice 
‘and purity, of the innate hatred of one race and the 
organic love of another. And Milkau fell gently asleep, 
contented and happy in the beneficent tropical night 
among primitive men, in the bosom of a new land kindly 
and strong; and what in the evening had been a subject 
of speculation, gradually became in his sleep, gently rising 
from an illumined horizon, a new race which would be 


108 CANAAN 


the happy product of the love of all the other races, 
which would repeople all the world and would found the 
universal city where light would shine for ever, where 
slavery would be unknown and life, easy, smiling, per- 
fumed, would be an everlasting wonder of liberty and 
love. 

Lentz tried in vain to court sleep and failed in his 
attempts to quiet the tumultuous thoughts that crowded 
his mind. The visions accumulated during the days he 
had journeyed through the jungle, appeared in his mind 
with all the freshness of the first impression. At times 
he felt the heat of the sun which inflamed everything 
and burned his blood; again, he felt himself going 
through the damp shadow of the forest whose exuber- 
ance and life reached his very soul; then he saw the. 
mighty river, which ran impetuously towards him, 
impelled by that mysterious force which animated the 
smallest molecules in all this new world. And Lentz 
saw everywhere the invading white man resolutely taking 
possession of the land and driving away the brown man 
who had grown there. And Lentz smiled at the prospect of 
the victory and dominion of his own race. The disdain 
he felt for the mulatto, a disdain in which he expressed 
all the hatred he felt for his languor, his fatuousness and 
his weakness, somewhat spoiled the radiant vision which 
the nature of the country had presented to his excited 
mind. Now he was dreaming a dream of greatness and 
triumph ... These lands would be the home of the eternal 
warriors, these forests would be consecrated to the fear- 
some cult of the mad, ferocious virgins ... It was a 
recapitulation of ancient Germania. In his feverish 
mind, he could see that the Germans would come, not in 


CANAAN 109 
r 
groups of humble slaves and merchants, not to work the 
land while the mulattos enjoyed themselves, not to beg 
a piece of property defended by black soldiers. They 
would come in great masses; innumerable, enormous 
vessels would bring them and land them all over the 
country. They would come thirsting for power and 
dominion, with the rough virginity of barbarians, in 
infinite cohorts, killing the crazy, lascivious men who had 
lived there and had polluted the beautiful land with their 
torpitude; they would eliminate them with iron and fire; 
they would scatter themselves throughout the continent ; 
they would found a new empire and would invigorate 
themselves eternally with the force of nature which they 
would rule as a slave, and sovereign, rich, powerful, 
eternal, they would forever flourish in the happiness of 
light . . . In Lentz’s dream, above the ships that sailed 
the sea and over the armies that marched on land, there 
flitted in the sky, like a leading cloud, an immense black 
mass which gradually assumed a strange gigantic form 
of piercing eyes, the light from which desended from on 
high and enveloped land and men with an inevitable, 
magnetic force. Then, alighting on the land of Brazil, 
Lentz saw the black eagle of Germany, 


CHAPTER IV. 


a walk around, admiring the place. They 

went down to the Doce river which, after 
twisting itself like a reptile through the soft hills of the 
marvelous land of Espirito-Santo, flows calmly on as far 
as the eye can see. The torrential rains of the previous 
days had considerably swollen the river. The gentle 
breeze sent a shiver through the quiet waters, rippling the 
surface. The mighty flood had swallowed the banks of 
the river, devouring the vegetation on the shores, and the 
submerged trees whose hanging branches seemed before 
to be sucking up the water, now tinged with green the 
pearl grey surface of the river. The flood dominated the 
whole landscape, subduing with singular majesty the 
profile of the forest and the indistinct silhouette of the 
mountains, away on the horizon. Thick fogs emerged 
from the river and were suspended under the sky, obscur- 
ing at times the sun and covering the earth with their 
shadows to the point of making colors possible. There 
is a truce in the eternal battle with the light, and the 
panorama which appears before the eyes is not the same 
as under the powerful sun which floods everything with 
its only color, reddish yellow; it is not the same land- 
scape, large, warm, monotonous, indistinct, where twilight 
is but a fugitive dream and night falls like a curtain 
obliterating day suddenly ... Milkau and Lentz witnessed 
under the canopy of fog the resurrection of colors, in the 

[110] 


ce next morning, Milkau and Lentz had 


CANAAN IIT 
a 
magnificence of which they voluptuously feasted their 
hungry eyes. 

“There is nothing like this peacefulness,” said Milkau 
as they walked along, “to give you a proper picture of 
life . . . I feel to-day much happier than I ever thought 
I could be. Happiness is forgetfulness and hope. It 
seems to me that we have come to a region where human 
moans cannot reach us; here there are no signs of suffer- 
ing, life is easy, smiling and lovable... After all, human 
nature was made for pleasure; and as pleasure is inherent 
to it, it can hardly perceive it, whereas pain, a strange and 
rude sensation, shakes it like a hurricane... How many 
elements, however, there are in ts to combat pain! How 
easily we forget it and how one moment of respite causes 
the illusion of eternal rest!” 

“That’s because we are the playthings of nature which, 
with its sweet, perfidious poisons, whose secret it alone 
possesses, enslaves our lives that it may torture them all 
the better,” argued Lentz. 

“But life is more natural than death,” continued Mil- 
kau, “and pleasure more than suffering . . . And you 
endow nature with a consciousness which it does not 
possess. Nature does not exist as an entity distinguished 
by a will. Our superiority over it lies in our own con- 
sciousness which enables us to perceives its laws, its 
inexorable rules, and forces us to follow a road which will 
bring us into harmony with the rest of things. And to- 
day, situated in this world, innocent of sacrifices, we have 
to find out the true meaning of our exceptional position. 
Let us deaden the sorrows of our past, if we cannot kill 
them outright, and our new life will be to us like a dream 
come true.” 


Ei CANAAN 


“And I also see here the virgin land with its store of 
energy for happiness,” rejoined Lentz, “and I shall live 
on to see the old city, strong and dominating, which, 
jumping over centuries of humiliation, will be reborn in 
this magnificent stage... ” 

“Hope,” said Milkau smiling, “seizes us and carries us 
towards the future... Isn’t it true that we are happy?” 

They went on walking along the shore which the 
flooded river had converted into a narrow path. At 
times they had to abandon it and go into the jungle, at 
others they went along jumping from stone to stone. 
And they laughed at their own gymnastics, exhilarated 
with the coolness of the morning, happy with their own 
illusions. For a long stretch the landscape was uniform; 
but its monotony was not fatiguing, for the vastness of 
the waters rested the mind. 

“To-day,” said Milkau, when they reached an open 
space along the shore, “we must choose a lot for our 
house.” 

“Oh! there won’t be any difficulty about that. Plenty 
of room here to select a small piece of land...” said 
Lentz disdainfully. 

“T can’t help experiencing a vague terror,” said Milkau, 
“mixed with the extraordinary pleasure of beginning life 
anew and building our own house with our hands... 
What is really a pity is that in this primitive isolation the 
. State should intervene...” 

“The State, which in our case is the surveyor, 
Felicissimo ...” 

“Would it not be better that the earth and its things 
should belong to everybody, without any sales or proper- 
ties?” asked Milkau. 


CANAAN 113 


“What I see is the very opposite of that. I see the 
» venality of everything, ambition which begets ambition 
and spreads the instinct of possession. What to-day is 
without the dominion of man, to-morrow will be his prey. 
Don’t you think that even the air, which at present 
escapes from our control, will be sold later on in the 
floating cities, even as the land is sold to-day? Won't 
that be a form of the expansion of conquest and posses- 
sion?” 

“Look here, don’t you see that property becomes more 
and more collective every day?” argued Milkau. ‘Don’t 
you see that the desire for popular acquisition which at 
present is confined to gardens, palaces, museums, roads, 
will finally extend to everything? . . . The desire for 
possession will die out as soon as there will be no need 
for it, when the idea of personal defence, on which it is 
based, shall become obsolete.” 

“As for myself,’ said Lentz, “if I am going to be a 
colonist, I want to enlarge my own land, to call to me 
other workers and found a nucleus which will mean for- 
tune and dominion .. . For it is only through riches and 
force that we can free ourselves from slavery.” 

“My little corner of land,” said Milkau, “shall remain 
just the same size as it will be to-day when I get it. I 
shall not enlarge it, I shall not allow ambition to get the 
better of me, I shall remain happy in the condition of a 
humble man among primitive people. Since we arrived 
I feel a perfect charm; it isn’t only nature which attracts 
and seduces we, it is also the sweet contemplation of man. 
They all have the same kindliness stamped on their faces ; 
they all exhibit the same estrangement from passion and 
hatred. There is in them all a sweet resignation... The 


114 CANAAN 


natives are friendly and they seem glad to make us 
partake of the happiness which they enjoy ... Those who 
come from afar have forgotten their bitterness, they are 
calm and happy; there are no distinctions among them 
and the chief is happy to lay aside his dignity with a 
levelling spontaneity which is the very genius of his race. 
Watching them, I can easily see what the whole country 
is: a nest of kindliness, forgetfulness and peace. There 
must be great unity among them; there can’t be any 
quarrels through ambition and pride; justice must be 
perfect; no victims will be immolated to the hatreds 
which were left behind on the road to exile. They will 
all be purified, and we too should forget ourselves and 
our prejudices in order to think oe the rest and not 
disturb the serenity of this life . 

A voice calling from behind Gee them from their 
reverie. 

“Are you trying to run away? Where on earth are 
you going?” 

They turned around, as if waking up from a dream, 
and saw the inquisitive triangle of the surveyor’s face. 
Felicissimo came towards them almost running. 

“Good morning,” said Milkau, shaking the surveyor 
affectionately by both hands. 

“That’s a fine thing to do!” exclaimed Felicissimo 
with a jovial, kindly expression. “I woke up, dressed 
myself in a hurry, went to get you for a little chat, and 
lo and behold! the birds had flown!” 

“We thought it would be a pity to wake you up. The 
house was in perfect silence when we came out. And 
talking, talking, we landed in this place.” 

“Well,” said the surveyor, “I started to hunt you up, 


CANAAN 115 


I searched here and there and everywhere and I am very 
glad that I came along here... And you didn’t even take 
a drop of coffee, or anything...” 

“Never mind,” said Lentz, “it is better to save time and 
enjoy a longer walk.” 

“All right. We'll go back to the shed at lunch time. . 
Why don’t you kill two birds with one stone and go to 
see the lot we spoke about last night?” 

“Tn what direction does it lie?” asked Milkau. 

“Right along here.” 

And Felicissimo, looking rapidly around, found his 
bearings. 

“Here we must be at lot number twenty, more or less. 
Let’s walk a little bit, about one kilometer, and I’ll show 
you number ten.” 

Felicissimo led the way, followed by the others walk- 
ing in Indian file along a narrow path. They went along 
talking in loud voices, shouting, and their conversation 
was broken and erratic. The sun, appearing between 
the clouds, violently transformed the restful picture of 
the foggy morning. The river, turned into yellow, 
looked as if the enormous incandescent mass of the sun 
had melted into it and was running through the earth. 

“Are you tired?” shouted Felicissimo. 

“What do you think we are?” asked Lentz. 

“T ask because of the road, for really it is the worst 
we could have taken. If we had gone by the high road, 
everything would have been all right . . . Oh, hell!” 

The surveyor, making a false move, had stuck his foot 
in the water and quickly jumped forward. Lentz, who 
followed him, told him to be careful. Sometimes they 
had to lower their heads in order to avoid the branches of 


116 CANAAN 


the trees. Again, they had to hold them back with their 
hands. The surveyor amused himself shouting from 
time to time: “Look out! Branch on your right!” With 
his hand he held the branch, and when he saw that his 
follower had taken hold of it, he let go. Sometimes he 
was in too much of a hurry and the branch went back 
with the crack of a whip into his neighbor’s face. “Be 
careful!” shouted the victim with a smile. Thus they 
walked until they came to a cross road, where Felicissimo 
took to the right and, taking a deep breath, turned to his 
companions : 

“My goodness! What a job! I never thought the 
river was so big. Let’s go along here and we'll soon be 
in the lot.” : 

Going towards the forest and walking along a path 
which was neither well beaten nor free from branches, 
they went on their way dodging stones and pools of water. 

Lentz walked silently, sighing and yawning. “Every- 
thing here will be troublesome,” he thought; “there are 
no roads, not even the slightest sign of comfort; every- 
thing is rough and wild. Would it not be better for me 
to desist from this life as a colonist and enter some 
business where there would be a road and everything 
would have been made ready by others? Really, it is a 
piece of madness to come to this wilderness to fight 
nature. Any other life would be preferable to this one. 
Wouldn’t it?...” And his eyes landed on Milkau, who 
was looking at him with a beatific smile. 

“What a delicious wilderness!” said Milkau as they 
advanced more and more into the jungle. 

“What a pity that the road is so bad; otherwise we 


CANAAN 117 


could enjoy this walk nicely,” said Lentz, afraid that 
*Milkau might read his thoughts. 

“Oh! don’t be downhearted. We'll open paths through 
all this. We'll make roads, we'll till the ground and we’ll 
build a cosy house which will compensate us for all our 
troubles .. . Won’t we?” 

“You won't lack work here,” the surveyor chimed in. 
“As a rule the colonists don’t want to do a thing. They 
just build their houses, work their lands and expect the 
government to step in and build roads, bridges and all... 
And if nothing is done, there goes a complaint, through 
Robert or some other big bluff, to the governor, and do 
you know? it becomes a question of politics and we are 
always getting hell.” 

“You must have a lot of trouble,” said Milkau sympa- 
thetically. 

“There are plenty of complaints. I have just now in 
my pocket a communication from the inspector ordering 
the engineer to make a report on a complaint from 
the colonists about a bridge which has all the timber 
rotting. I believe some of the sticks have already fallen 
down. We asked for funds, but the inspector paid no 
attention to our request. The colonists, however, are a 
tough lot. They went to the big fellows and Robert 
arranged a petition which he sent to Victoria. The 
governor was mad because he was afraid of the result 
of the coming elections, and he sent the petition to the 
inspector, who, in turn, sent it here to the engineer so that 
he could make an estimate ... That takes a lot of time... 
But my revenge is that when the money arrives it will 
be too little; for time does not rest and the timber is 
rotting more and more every day and it will be necessary 


118 CANAAN 


to build a new bridge. And there will be another 
Packets sh 

“And what will the colonists do if the bridge falls?” 
asked Milkau, somewhat alarmed. 

“That’s very simple. They can throw a tree trunk 
from shore to shore, and keep on living. I am at your 
service, but I don’t give a damn for the government, the 
inspector and all that crew...” 

The surveyor’s temper was one of those that are easily 
vented with a few curses. Ina short while he had for- 
gotten his troubles and returned to his accustomed 
joviality. They went along the path and in a short time 
reached a larger and a clearer one. 

“Here is the lot I recommend to you,” said Felicissimo, 
walking on a few steps. 

The others looked at the land, which had big trees and 
was covered by a strong vegetation revealing the fertility 
of the soil. They could not see through on either side, 
for the path had been cut right through the wood, in the 
deep, silent darkness. 

For a few moments they remained dumb, overawed by 
the calmness of things, and their isolation from the rest 
of the world gave them a painful sensation. Felicissimo, 
on whose restless, lively temperament silence made no 
impression, became impatient at not getting an answer, 
and he added: 

“This is a very fine lot. Look at the soil . . . Look at 
those trees . . . You'll have to do some work, I won’t 
deny that. After burning the brush, which won’t amount 
to much, the difficulty will be to clear the land... You, 
however, can come to some arrangement with the gang, 


CANAAN 119g 


and they’ll do the job in the twinkling of an eye... Ah! 
It'll be great fun!” 

“We'll be all right here,” said Milkau, who had 
recovered from his momentary cowardice, buoyed up by 
a ray of hope. 

“Tt will suit me,’ 
his thoughts. 

He leaned carelessly on a sucopira. 

The surveyor looked at the tree. 

“What a pity,” he said, “to have to destroy all this.” 

“T would prefer a lot where such sacrifice would not 
be necessary,” said Milkau, echoing the surveyor’s 
feelings. 

“There isn’t one,’ answered Felicissimo. 

“Man,” observed Lentz smiling with a triumphant air, 
“must always destroy life in order to create life. Besides, 
a tree hasn’t a soul. But if it had one... we could 
eliminate it so that we could expand.” 

Milkau, with the calmness of resignation, said: 

“T understand perfectly well that it is our fate to 
wound the Earth and wrench our food from her bosom 
by force and violence; but the day will come when man, 
adapting himself to the cosmic environment by an extra- 
ordinary longevity of the species, will receive his organic 
sustenance in peaceful harmony with his surroundings, 
just as do the plants now, and he will be able to dispense 
with the sacrifice of animals and plants. But for the 
present we must adapt ourselves to this transition period 
... But I painfully regret that in wounding the Earth I 
strike at the very fountain of our lives, and I wound, not 
so much the material in it, but the religious and immortal 
prestige which it has in the human soul... ” 


J 


said Lentz slowly, trying to conceal 


5 


120 CANAAN 


While they were talking thus, Felicissimo, led by his 
ingenuous love for nature, looked at the old trees, and 
with his hand patted their trunks, just like the last 
caresses to victims in the moment of the sacrifice. The 
morning breeze penetrated the jungle, shaking the leaves 
gently, and at its passage a low, humble murmur rose 
from the trees, like the muffled moans of the dying. 

“Well, what are you going to decide?” asked the sur- 
veyor. 

The immigrants agreed with a good will to settle on 
the lot selected by the surveyor. 

“You are right, for this situation is eminently suitable 
for coffee, and, besides, it is very handy, so close to the 
road.” 

“And can you get a good view of the river from here?” 
asked Lentz. | 

“Absolutely. As soon as you cut down the trees 
you'll be able to see the whole of it.” 

“Tt will be fine to have a little house in this charming 
spot,” said Milkau, beaming with satisfaction. 

“You'll see... And now, let us be going towards the 
shed; it is lunch time. We'll come back to-day with the 
men to measure up.” 

They started on their way back, excited by the-thoughts 
each harbored in his own mind. They talked loudly 
along the road, scaring the sleeping birds and shaking 
from their voluptuous lethargy the lizards that ran away 
through the dry, crackling leaves. 

When they arrived at the shed, they went into the 
office, and there, in front of the big map of the district, 
the surveyor showed them the exact location of the lot 
they had chosen, singing its praises, and at the same time 


CANAAN 121 


fie took up a pen dipped in red ink and marked the lot 
with a cross, just as he had marked all the other lots 
that had been sold. All the documents necessary for 
the transaction were printed forms, and in one of them 
Milkau had to fill up the necessary information for proper 
identification. This done, the two friends signed the 
petition and handed it over to the surveyor. They paid 
the costs of the mensuration and the plan and this was 
the only formality before the lot was delivered to its new 
owners; for, thanks to the condescension of his chief, 
Felicissimo disposed at will of all the lands for sale. 
And it is thus, Milkau thought, that the complicated 
machinery of the State, with its costly departments and 
its innumerable officials, is concentrated in the humble 
hands of a poor surveyor, who is, as a matter of fact, 
absolute lord of the public property. 

“Let’s go and get something to eat. You must be 
starving, for you haven’t had a thing since last night,” 
said Felicissimo, laying his hand on Lentz’s shoulder. 

Lentz instinctively dodged his hand to avoid a mark of 
intimacy that appeared degrading to him. 

The workers were already gathered around the poorly 
set table when the others arrived. The lunch was noisy 
at first; a good appetite and the closer acquaintance 
between them made all feel jolly. 

Towards the end of the meal, Felicissimo became sad ; 
something worried him suddenly, and although he tried 
to disguise it, he could not manage it, and fell into a 
profound meditation. This cast a gloom over the table, 
and the men restrained their loquacity. As soon as lunch 
was over, the workers, who were accustomed to the 
surveyor’s fits of sadness, which were the prelude to the 


124 CANAAN 


mensuration of the lots, left the shed, glad to escape the 
gloomy face of their chief. They went in search of a 
water barrel which stood in the yard and dipped their 
hands in, rubbing their faces with much noise and 
splutter. The barrel was too small for so many people 
and the men fought laughing to get at it first. There 
ensued a great racket; each pushed his companion and 
dragged him away amidst a volley of good natured 
epithets and uproarious laughter. 

“Come on! Get ready there!” shouted Felicissimo. 
And at the voice of command the men sobered up and 
finished their ablutions in good order. Then they armed 
themselves with instruments and tools and began the 
march. Felicissimo and the new colonists walked behind 
them. Several times along the road, Milkau courteously 
attempted a conversation with the surveyor, but the latter, 
absorbed in his own thoughts, answered the questions 
laconically. Then they went on in ruminating silence, 
scorched by the heat of the sun which even in the forest 
was suffocating. After walking a long time, Felicissimo 
ordered a halt. 

They all stopped mechanically. 

“We have to open up ground here.” 

The workers began to unpack the necessary instru- 
ments and tools. The surveyor followed their movements 
in religious silence, and it was with a certain amount of 
surprise that he saw them open up a case whence they 
produced an instrument which Felicissimo took in his 
own hands with feverish anxiety. He asked for a tripod, 
which a man quickly brought to him, and began to screw 
the instrument on it. A solemn calm pervaded them all, 
and the surveyor performed his task with the greatest 


CANAAN 123 


” attention. After a while, he found his bearings and 
ordered three workmen to walk along the road with the 
rods painted in zones of red and white. And turning 
round to Milkau and Lentz, he solemnly asked: 

“T don’t know whether you know anything about it, 
but this is a theodolite. A wonderful invention! It 
saves a lot of work in making plans. To-day we do men- 
suration in the twinkling of an eye, for, as you know, 
it combines levels and altitudes: you can take a horizontal 
and a vertical angle, both at the same time .. . Great 
invention! I don’t know how I could get along without 
it |’ 

The new colonists were astonished to discover a new 
Felicissimo, and did not smile. The surveyor became 
more solemn and gave himself up entirely to the instru- 
ment; he looked through the telescope, crouched down, 
stood up to look over the instrument, readjusted the 
lenses, turning the screw one way and the other, but 
always without success. Anguish seized him at his 
failure, but he was obstinate. He walked away from the 
instrument to look at it from a distance. He came back 
to it, fixed it, looked through it again, and always with 
the same negative result. The workmen stood around in 
fearful silence, for they knew that terrible moment with 
the theodolite. Felicissimo, as they well knew, became 
so changed that he used to insult and beat his men. They 
feared him, and instinctively drew away from the disturb- 
ing apparatus, for fear of a blow. And the anguish of 
the surveyor was greater than usual that day because he 
had intended to make a display before Milkau and Lentz. 
The sun was scorching; the feet burned in contact with 
the ground; the surveyor was bathed in an extenuating, 


124 CANAAN 


cold sweat. Time flew without the mensuration making 
any headway and to Felicissimo, in his anguish, it seemed 
interminable. 

“Ah! the devil has got hold of it to-day,” he said 
to his guests. “I can’t see a thing with it. I bet some 
of these wretches have put it out of commission...” 

And he looked furiously at the workers who, with their 
eyes, thanked the colonists, whose presence was saving 
them from the outbursts of the surveyor’s wrath. 

By this time, the men with the rods were tired, and 
they held the rods in an oblique position. 

Felicissimo rushed up to the first one. 

“You blackguard! I see why I can’t get my instru- 
ment to work. You are breaking up the line.” 

The man excused himself, saying that he only neglected 
the rod when the surveyor was not at the instrument. 
Felicissimo was mad with rage, but the shame of his 
failure did not give any strength to his ire. On the con- 
trary, he became weak, disheartened, wilted. He 
returned to the instrument in a desperate attempt to 
obtain a reading. An uncontrollable sadness seized him, 
and Milkau, feeling sorry for him, exclaimed: 

“Better let it go until to-morrow. It’s too hot to-day 
_.. We had a good lunch and we had walked a lot before 
that .. . you must be tired. To-morrow in the cool of 
the morning... And then ... who knows? . . . perhaps 
the theodolite is out of order. You'd better take it home 
and there find out at your leisure.” 

“Yes, I think that will be better. There must be some- 
thing wrong with it... But it would be a pity to waste 
time. Why couldn’t we measure it up with the tape?... 


CANAAN 125 


It is an old system which I don’t like, but as the instru- 
ment is out of order, there is no other way.” 

“All right.” 

“Put this away,” order Felicissimo to one of the men, 
pointing disdainfully to the instrument. 

~ The workers looked knowingly at each other. The 
old farce of the theodolite had been gone through again. 
They knew full well that in over two hundred mensura- 
tions, the surveyor had never managed to work with the 
damned instrument which exerted a satanic influence 
over him, ruffling his temper, putting him beside himself, 
and was the cause of the terror which had cast a shadow 
on his mind ever since the end of their lunch. As the 
theodolite disappeared in the box, Felicissimo’s soul 
seemed freed from anguish, and the surveyor returned to 
his jovial humor, forgetting his scientific tortures. 

“These damned mulattoes...” Lentz whispered to 
Milkau. 

And as the surveyor, rid of the theodolite, approached 
them, Lentz stopped, changed his voice, and somewhat 
sarcastically said: 

“iets get that tape!” 

The mensuration was carried out as usual. Some 
measurements were taken along the road and into the 
jungle, and four posts stuck at the corners marked the 
lot acquired by the two immigrants. The ditch, however, 
had to be dug up to separate the lot from the others. 
Milkau asked Felicissimo if he could arrange with 
the men to have this piece of work done immediately. 
The surveyor objected that the plan had not been drawn 


up yet. 
Don’t let that bother you,” said Milkau. “The ditch 


126 CANAAN 


will be opened up along the lines you have marked, 
scrupulously following the rods and measurements. We 
take the responsibility of digging a new ditch if this one 
does not turn out according to your plan.” 

The kindly and obliging surveyor let him do as he 
pleased, and Milkau hired the men. A few moments’ 
afterwards the workers began to clear the ground. At 
first they chose the shrubs, cutting them down and dodg- 
ing the large trees, unwilling to tackle the larger job. 
The line opened up narrow and crooked. But when they 
saw what they had done, as if waking up from an innate 
laziness and stimulated by the sight of the strangers, the 
men set to work in dead earnest. The axe began to 
sing with energy against the trunks of the trees. Several 
men attacked at the same time one poor single tree. They 
exhibited an insane rage, an hysterical fury of destruc- 
tion and in a short while they were entirely absorbed in 
their destructive task. The steel, impelled by the arms 
ever moving in wide sweeps, did not rest. The axe fell 
with a thunderous crash, drawing a groan from the robust 
chests of the destroyers. When they met a tougher tree, 
their energy was redoubled, the sweat ran down their 
faces, the blows were struck with great force, and the 
furious impulse sent the steel so deep into the wood, that 
to draw it out again required a desperate effort. On 
they went straight as an arrow! The exercise did good 
to their herculean limbs, and their congested faces were 
lit with happiness. No longer did they groan as with the 
first strokes. Growing accustomed to the work, they 
enjoyed it, and from their rough mouths came the beloved 
old songs. Joca was the first one to raise his voice. 
The Germans imitated him instinctively and each in his 


CANAAN 127 


SF 

own tongue sang ballads learned in their childhood. The 
mulatto from Maranhao sang of the longings of his heart, 
of all that he loved with the greatest energy of a human 
being. And he sang in a tone of voice which was like 
a long drawn sigh. 


“Good bye, jungle, good bye, fields, 
Good bye, home where dwells my heart, 
Since I hence must now depart, 

May I see you again some day.”? 


It was the great event, the drama of his life, that tear- 
ing himself from his native land. And he sang about it 
without paying any attention to anyone, sinking his axe 
mechanically into the trees. At times he gave up this 
sorrowful song, and verses of a different character came 
unconsciously from his lips. 


“J saw your tracks in the sand, 

And I then began to ponder: 

Your body must be a wonder, 
When your tracks do make me cry.’”? 


In this refined and superior expression of a purely 
animal sentiment, Joca yelled with voluptuous cries. The 
cadence and the thought of the strophe are saturated 
with the sweet and caressing lasciviousness of all his race. 


+Adeus, campo, e adeus, matto, 
Adeus, casa onde morei! 

Ja que é forgoso partir, 

Algum dia te verei. 

“Vi o teu rasto na areia 

E puz-me a considerar: 

Que encantos nao tem teu corpo, 
Si o teu rasto faz chorar! 


128 CANAAN 


This solitary Brazilian voice was joined by the strong, 
musical accents of the German voices. They sang in 
chorus and their verses were an echo from the taverns 
of the Germanic country. For a moment, there in the 
tropical jungle, the immigrants, under the spell of their 
songs, dreamed that they were gathering together, joyful 
and boisterous, to drink: ‘Die alten Deutschen trinken 
noch ein, nochein. ..” (The old Germans drink still, 
drink still . . . ). The work continued, more active, 
happier. The echoes gathered the strange verses of the 
two races which intermingled in the air to form a curious 
union... 


Your tracks do make me cry... 
Noch, noch ein... 


Milkau stayed for a few days in the immigrants’ lodg- 
ings letting time fly, without deciding to begin the life 
which his heart had planned in a long dream. 

The great pity he felt at the sacrifice of the forest 
paralyzed him. He felt that a little of the beauty and 
the splendor of the earth was going to die. And Milkau 
shivered at the thought of all the suffering man has 
caused in this world, passing by without listening to the 
moans of outraged nature, destroying everywhere, like 
the fatal bearer of death. And there is life all around 
him: in the fertile earth, in the woman he loves, in the 
very dust he treads. Everything lives, everything has a 
voice, a soul in the eternal harmony of the universe... 
But, in spite of all, Milkau was willing to forgive man. 
He understood the inexorableness of his fate, and he 
resigned himself to necessity. 


Pa CANAAN 129 


It was dawn when he approached Lentz and said 
resolutely : 

“We must burn the forest.” 

The idea of fire flashed through the mind of his com- 
panion. A little after, the men got together and they 
went into the forest with the sacerdotal composure of 
those who are going to perform some infernal rite. At 
one of the angles of the forest, they set fire to some 
brush which appeared to be pretty dry. Before the 
flames with their agile, red, fiery tongues could reach the 
branches of the trees, thick smoke rose through the 
foliage, and, suspended in the subtle air of the forest, 
began to drift towards the road like a heavy cloud. The 
fire had started. The flames rose up and licked with 
satanic greed the trunks of the trees, which twisted them- 
selves in the torture of pain. All the lower branches 
burned away, and the parasitic plants, like a powder train, 
carried the flames to the tops, and smoke darkened the 
paths, followed closely by the burning breath of the fire. 
Many trees had caught fire, burning like gigantic torches, 
and stretching their branches towards the others, spread 
the ravages of the fire. The wind penetrated through 
the openings made by the fire and fanned the flames. 
Heavy branches falling, green trunks bursting, resins 
melting noisily, all formed a desperate music, like a dis- 
charge of musketry. The men stood astonished before 
the general clamor of the victims. Viperine tongues of 
fire tried to reach them. They retreated, running before 
the columns of fire that pursued them. Over the forest 
the birds escaped in terror, flying desperately and soaring 
above the smoke. An araponga pierced the air with a 
metallic screech of torture, The hanging nests were 


130 CANAAN 


burning and the anguished cries of the chickens joined 
the chorus with their sad plaintive notes. Through the 
clearings in the forest ran the wild beasts which had been 
reached by the fire. Some escaped the danger, others 
fell lifeless into the furnace. 

With unfeigned joy, the men saw the green leaves, the 
flesh of the monster, turn yellow, and the firm, erect 
trunks, which formed the skeleton, crumble down. But 
the fire advanced towards them and put an end to their 
fun. Surprised, astonished, they discovered that. the 
conflagration was threatening their lives and had taken 
possession of the forest and was passing on to other lots. 
Resolute and wild, they seized the hoes and began to 
dig a ditch. Towards the river bank the work was com- 
paratively easy, for the ground was almost clear. There 
they quickly opened a protecting ditch. On the other 
side, at the boundary of the lot, in the middle of the 
forest, the struggle was terrible. The neurosis of fear 
increased their forces a hundred fold. The pygmies 
who, unable to vanquish the trees, had had recourse to 
fire, spurred now by their own defence, threw themselves 
against the trees with the fury of giants. And blackened, 
blinded, they dug a trench, and if they met with the 
obstacle of a trunk, they attacked it-anxiously and fur- 
iously with the axe. They continued to dig until the fire 
reached them. The fiery column, animated like a living 
being, advanced solemnly, bent on satisfying its appetite. 
The burned branches continued to fall on the scorched 
ground. The fire was not long in reaching a group of 
canes. One could hear a frightful succession of shots 
when the canes burst among the flames. The smoke 
increased and ascended through the red, burning air; the 





CANAAN 131 


detonations multiplied, the flames swept on while the fire 
embraced the whole group of bamboos. A hundred 
meters away the colonists continued to dig. Tired of 
eating up the hard wood of the bamboos, the fire edged 
along and quickly, voraciously, skirted the road, swallow- 
ing up the brush which grew at the edge of it until it 
arrived at the trench. With a tremendous effort the men 
had got ahead of it. The flames looked over the barrier 
and stopped before the open impassable space and extend- 
ed themselves right and left, continuing their work of 
devastation. 

The colonists and the workmen, after becoming masters 
of the situation and invincible conquerors of the earth, 
returned home to the shed. 

At night, from the piazza of the big shed, when the 
stars seemed to walk through the sky in a slow rhythm, 
Milkau looked forward in his imagination to the happy 
time when there would be no violence; while the others 
contemplated with diabolical satisfaction the glowing 
forest as it twisted in the agonies of the fire. 


CHAPTER V. 


ILKAU’S happiness was perfect. He had 
M subdued his restless desires, had cleansed 
his spirit from the strains of ambition, 
domination and pride, and had allowed his simplicity of 
heart to return and inspire him. He worked quietly in 
the plot of land which he occupied. His little house, 
built in the silence of the jungle, was as humble as those 
of the other colonists; there was nothing there which did 
not indicate refined taste, or a certain tendency to com- 
fort. The rustic monotony was only broken by Milkau’s 
bedroom, which gave an impression as of a chapel of love, 
veneration and remembrances. It was full of those photo- 
graphs which man carries as protecting genii in his earth- 
ly peregrinations. Here there were members of the 
family: the mother, almost a girl, with her big eyes full 
of sorrow and supplication; the father, illumined by a 
martyr’s smile; and the girlish woman whom he loved 
when she passed before his eyes, becoming transfigured 
before death. Most of them were photographs of the 
great human figures: poets, lovers, sufferers. Milkau 
lived with these figures in a deep and religious com- 
munion, which gives eternal happiness and fills the void 
of isolation. He felt himself protected by a flowing 
hope and resignation, which emanated from the love of 
remembrances, enveloping him as in an invincible armor. 
And life, in these surroundings, smiled at him like a 


[132] 


x CANAAN 133 


glowing resurrection. To work with his own hands gave 
him a positive sensation of human dignity. His eyes 
searched around him for the world where he wanted to 
go, moved by a strong affection, happy and ennobled, not 
by what he had done, but by what he was going to do. 

In a short time, Milkau was on friendly terms with the 
residents of the colony at Doce river. It charmed him to 
associate with these primitive people, who received him 
without mistrust and who became gradually affected by 
his superior knowledge and his kindness of heart. 
Milkau, without exhibiting any intellectual pride, accept- 
ed the lessons which the old experienced colonists gave 
him about things connected with the land. Finding him 
very attentive, the colonists loved him all the more, and 
in his presence instinctively assumed an attitude full of 
sympathy and respect, for he never scared them with a 
display of his education. Milkau was destined to become 
gradually the central figure in this region, and without 
even feeling it, the colonists absorbed the knowledge he 
radiated, just as the earth drinks the dew drops until she 
is satisfied. 

Unlike his companion, Lentz led a sad life, in an 
intimate and secret despair. The life he had chosen was 
a great humiliation to him. It tortured him with the 
excruciating agony of having to lead an existence entirely 
opposed to his ideas. He stayed with Milkau, incapable 
of abandoning him, held by the charm of his companion, 
which stimulated his mind. To his weak character was 
coupled the daring of a dreamer, and his kindness of 
heart was a hindrance to the gigantic wickedness of his 
idealism. And thus inactive, paralyzed, walking in 
Milkau’s sweet shadow, he, the creator of force, the 


134 CANAAN 


apostle of energy, found himself a contradiction, a real 
man. 

In order to amuse himself and to tire out his nerves, 
Lentz undertook to do the trips in search of provisions 
for the house, and he felt a deep joy when, all alone, he 
crossed the mountains silently, dreaming his life dreams 
in all their greatness. At times he went out hunting, 
exhausting his strength and calming his nerves with a 
continuous, persistent effort. It was in those excursions 
that he used to meet in the jungle the taciturn neighbor 
who had passed in front of the big shed the afternoon 
of his arrival. Never saying a word, avoiding all conver- 
sation, the old German, agile, energetic, primitive, went 
on his way followed by a pack of dogs that jumped 
around him, or ran ahead of him, their ears hanging as 
they scented the ground. 

One afternoon, Lentz came back from Santa Theresa 
bringing the news that the following day there was 
going to be a festival at Jequitiba. The new pastor was 
going to celebrate his first religious service, assisted by 
the pastors of Altona and Luxemburgo. In Santa 
Theresa and in the houses of the colonists which Lentz 
had passed, they were all getting ready for the holiday. 
Milkau, who wanted to identify himself with the activities 
of the people among whom he had settled, decided to go 
to Jequitiba. And early next morning, the two friends 
left, taking the road that leads into the mountains. 

Seldom did any landscape awaken such an emotion in 
Milkau as did that of the highlands. His very mind 
was thrilled by the ascent, and his soul scaled the silent 
and placid regions of the infinite. At the hour of dawn the 
numbed earth seemed to waken up under the chrvsta- 


oe CANAAN 135 


line transparency of the firmament and seemed to try 
to rise towards the sky, towards space, in an angry 
motion of strength and despair. And at that moment of 
dizzy exaltation, the mystic essence which permeated 
Milkau filled him with a desire to reach eternity and to 
become dissolved in the infinite. 

When they were near Jequitiba, they met caravans of 
colonists walking or riding. Families and groups, one 
after another, filled the roads. They were all happy, 
excited by the coolness of the morning and by the 
pleasurable anticipation of spending a day in each other’s 
company, for the chapel had not been open for months 
and the colonists had not gathered in all that time. It 
was with the pleasure of newcomers that they saluted 
each other. Some went by at a gallop and then the 
others excitedly started running along the road in a mad 
race. The nearer they came to the church, the thicker 
became the multitude. At certain points they had to 
slow their steps, so as not to trample on other people, and 
then they fell into the rhythmic march of a procession. 
After several hours’ journey, as they turned a bend of 
the road, the two friends perceived the chapel of 
Jequitiba. 

The chapel was in front of them, and they could see 
the whole panorama of low hills, like the waves of a calm 
sea, basking in the golden light. Pigmies were slowly 
climbing up the side of the hill on which the chapel stood. 
The multitude, flowing thither from all parts, seemed to 
be boiling in the earth. In the distance, the white chapel, 
surrounded by the seething multitude, seemed to move 
like a prey pushed here and there by an army of ants. 

They soon reached the foot of the hill, and following 


136 | CANAAN 


the others, they climbed some wooden steps, built in the 
earth, which reached to the very top, to the pastor’s 
house, at the back of the chapel. As they climbed up, 
they could see those who came on horseback, getting off 
their mounts, tying them to posts, and putting the feed 
bags on the horses. The summit, where the chapel stood, 
formed a small plateau, and there the people were 
elbowing and pushing each other. A hubbub of voices 
filled the air, disturbing Milkau and Lentz, accustomed 
as they were to the solitude of the jungle. But they 
soon got accustomed to the noise, and amused themselves 
looking at the multitude until the door of the chapel 
opened. 

It was a great gathering of the colonists of the district. 
Some had been there for thirty years, and their skins were 
yellow and wrinkled like parchment; others were still 
red and young. They all wore their best clothes, and 
this formed a mixture of fashions from all times, reli- 
giously preserved in dresses that would never wear out. 
Each of the women had a dress according to the fashion 
in vogue when she left her old country. Long dresses 
with low cut waists and frills, tight fitting waists, 
crinolines, laces, swallow-tails of sober design, silken 
toques, simple white scarves covering the head, velvet 
hats, city dresses, country dresses, they all came to life 
again in the hills of Espirito-Santo, as if in a restrospec- 
tive revue of fashions, or as the fantastic gathering of a 
masked ball. 

“This alone is worth the journey,” said Lentz jokingly, 
“an expert could determine by the dresses the time of 
each migration.” 

“That’s true,” agreed Milkau, attentive to the remarks 


CANAAN 137 


which his friend was making about the sartorial details. 
“But let us also admire the happiness of these people.” 

“Even the old ones...” 

“The happiness of old people is one of the command- 
ments of life.” 

Mixed with the smell of the earth, the perfume of the 
flowers which the girls wore in their hair, and of the 
Sunday-clothes, long kept stored in trunks, softened the 
strong odor peculiar to crowds. The people continued 
to jostle each other, tumultous and happy. Muiulkau 
looked around and discovered in the distance Felicissimo, 
Joca and the employes of the land commission, who had 
long since left the Doce river and were measuring lots 
in other parts of the country. The surveyor had a car- 
nation in the lapel of his coat, and from his pocket issued 
the points of a handkerchief. From where he was 
standing he saluted, taking off his hat and displaying his 
broken teeth in a broad smile. 

“Well,” said Lentz in a low voice, after a prolonged 
pause, “after all, we have already seen the best of this 
show. And it is getting hot. What do we care about 
the pastor’s service? Let us take a walk through the 
hills, or lie down under the shade of a tree while 
we wait to see the people coming out of the service.” 

“No. Let us remain here and accompany these excel- 
lent people. We'll amuse ourselves seeing how they 
amuse themselves.” 

“But, frankly, these people could amuse themselves 
in some other way. This religion...” 

“Is as worthy of respect as any other.” 

“A time will come when man will bury with his 


138 CANAAN 


ancestors the cults they handed down to him. Every- 
thing will be forgotten. And man will live without fear.” 

Milkau looked steadily at his friend. For a moment 
he stood silent, hesitating whether to answer or not. 
Finally he said: 

“The religious spirit is invincible. In order to destroy 
it, man would have to explain the meaning of the 
universe and of life; and science, however much it may 
advance, will never exhaust the wonders of the world. 
The march of science is like our own along the expanse 
of the desert; the horizon flees as we advance and can 
never be reached. The unknown is always yonder, 
yonder . . . And the religion which idealizes it, the 
religion, of whatever it be, of a god or of an abstraction, 
such as is worshipped by human society, is inseparable 
from man. It is the expression of our immortal emo- 
tions, of our eternal wonder at the universe or exaltation 
of our love, and is always a salutory, divine force.” 

In front of them, where the slope down hill started, 
three men were just arriving, brutally spurring their 
horses, which were panting up the slope. When the riders 
got off, Milkau noticed that they were better dressed than 
all the rest. The oldest was a man with a big head, and a 
heavy paunch. He wore a dark monocle and had side- 
whiskers. One of the others was very young, dark and 
beardless. The third was fair, with a fringe of light 
chestnut hair around his face. He had a tired, lazy air. 
Lentz was curious to know who they were. One of the 
men, standing near by, told him that they were the 
authorities at Cachoeiro. 

They really were the judicial triumvirate of the 
countryside. Watching them closely, one could see that 


CANAAN 139 


they were fully conscious of their superior positions. 
They looked at the colonists as if they had been an 
inferior, amorphous mass; and the old man of the 
monocle, very: stiff, solemnly and silently received the 
salutations of the people. Two or three city men made 
their way through the crowd and came up all smiles to 
the trio. Others, at a distance, saluted very courteously 
with the evident intention of winning the good graces of 
the personages. Instinctively, or through sheer imitation, 
the colonists went on saluting, and one could see nothing 
but heads bending low in the direction of the magistrates, 
who returned their salutations very disdainfully. 

The sun had become very warm and under its scorch- 
ing rays the people were getting impatient. They all 
looked towards the closed doors of the chapel, complain- 
ing because they were always made to wait outside. 
The men took their hats off and wiped the sweat, and 
some of them covered their heads with their handker- 
chiefs. The young women tied their handkerchiefs 
round their necks, while the old ones fanned themselves 
with their skirts. They suffered with the heat and 
grumbled. Some took shelter under the scanty shade 
of the walls. One group, seeking protection from the 
sun, had gathered under a miserable shrub. The horses 
snorted, lashed their tails, to keep the flies away, and 
ate their rations of Indian corn. 

The multitude moved slowly towards the doors, as if 
they were going to force them. But they stopped 
suddenly and pushed backwards, grumbling. At last the 
door opened, and there was a joyous invasion of the dark, 
cool chapel. 

Milkau and Lentz managed to obtain places in one of 


140 CANAAN 


the wooden pews, and there, at ease, observed the 
simplicity of the interior which matched perfectly the 
simplicity of the exterior. There was not the slightest 
attempt at decoration; on the whitewashed walls were 
painted verses from the Bible; in the center, a low pulpit 
of plain deal, without any varnish, and adorned with 
white ribbons with holy sentences printed in black; at the 
back, a black cross with a white sudarium hanging from 
it. 

“Very sad, very bare, as usual,’ whispered Lentz to 
his companion. “The Protestant atmosphere is plebeian, 
unzsthetic; a thousand times better a Catholic chturch, 
with its pomp and its ceremonies of subtle symbolical 
expressions.” 

Milkau agreed with a nod of his head. All around 
them, people talked in whispers. 

“Haven't you seen him yet?” asked an old woman, 
alluding to the new pastor. 

“Not yet,” answered the other. “I haven't been 
around here for goodness knows how long. Where did 
you see him?” 

“At Jacob Muller’s store. I saw him the other day. 
He seems to be a very nice person.” 

“Of course! If he weren’t, why should we have to 
give him our money?” 

“Oh, well, you know that we can’t help ourselves. 
We've got to give, always. Didn’t we ask Robert to 
bring us a pastor? No matter what he is, we’ll have to 
put up with him.” 

After resting a little while in the coolness of the 
chapel, the people again became restless. They tried to 
conceal their impatience, which was clearly shown by 


CANAAN 141 


their yawns and the movements of their arms and legs. 
It was not long, however, before the notes of a har- 
monium brought the congregation to a respectful silence. 
The crowd calmed down, and the instrument continued to 
sing its solos, like the murmurings of a piano or a flute, 
followed by a mysterious accompaniment of multiple and 
infinite voices. The music soothed the nerves of the 
auditorium. Milkau trembled. The music filled his 
soul, which was capable of feeling the minutest and most 
delicious secrets of sound, and of soaring beyond his own 
self to lose its essence in the most entrancing and halluci- 
nating sensation. Music! . . . What an accumulation 
of sensations from the souls of our ancestors, what 
rivers of blood have not flown from father to son, slowly 
gathering up from each cell the painful, slow vibrations, 
working steadily to refine the world of nerves until they 
have formed in man the latest of his souls, the musical 
soul! ... While the organ up in the chapel was singing, 
Milkau, lost in his remembrances, his soul full of 
harmonies, returned to his early life. It was in a 
church in Heidelberg, in the old country, in the past... 
And Milkau, with his eyes shut, no longer perceived the 
boundary between dreams and reality. Everything was 
strangely confused . .. He sees the figure of a woman 
who enters in the silent shadow and sits down quietly. 
Her eyes are fixed on the Bible and on it falls her hair 
like a golden rain, like a blessing and a heavenly light 
shining on the book. There is music also in Heidelberg: 
a fantastic and angelic melody fills the church. Music! 
The woman Milkau loved, sings. A dream within a 
dream ; in the infinite voluptuousness of the temple, while 
she, absorbed in prayer, mystic and believer, sang hymns, 


142 CANAAN 


he, enthralled by the harmonies, wrote sacred poems; for 
to write is to sing with the pen... Music! 

The organ stopped in the little chapel at Jequitiba. 
Milkau woke up from his dream with a start. His old 
eyes, with an expression of astonishment, landed on a 
young woman who seemed to have been amusing herself 
by watching him sleep. Milkau was confused for a 
little while... Was he still dreaming or was that woman 
the realization of his vision? He seemed to have seen in 
another life the same head with the soft curly hair of a 
child, with the same sweet and loving expression. And 
she looked at him in an unconcerned way. And when 
she noticed that she was being watched, she bent her head 
over her bosom with the submissive attitude of a tame 
dove. 

The new pastor mounted the pulpit, closely watched 
by the crowd. He was tall, with a red beard which fell 
on his frock coat and made a fine contrast. His rough 
hands, the red complexion of his coarse face, the 
accent of his voice, his phrases, all indicated to Milkau 
that he was a country chap; and there came to his mind 
the remarks Lentz had made about Protestantism, which 
he always held as a dry and simple religion, the one 
closest to Judaism in its austerity, in the excessive rigor 
of its monotheism, a rustic rel‘gion whose best interpre- 
ters were rude, violent, and radical men. When the 
Church split up, each portion retained those spirits that 
were peculiar to it; the peoples of the North, uneducated, 
savage, independent, naturally revolted against the civil- 
ized peoples of the South, for whom Catholicism is the 
natural successor to paganism,—cunning, elegant and 
ceremonious. 


CANAAN 143 


In humble, timid tones the pastor went on pouring out 
his religious German. This first meeting with the colon- 
ists was for him a crisis, and instead of preaching his 
sermon in an easy manner, he stopped to look at the 
people, to reflect on himself and his shortcomings. Many 
times he stopped for want of inspiration, and stumbled 
on. The congregation lost interest in the vague, halting 
sermon and devoted their attention to the preacher and 
his family. 

Next to Milkau, a man was talking to a woman, 
gossiping about another two who were in the choir: 

“The one thin and brown... ” 

“She looks like a Jewess... 

“Yes, but she seems to be a nice person all the same... 
She is the wife of the new pastor.” 

“Oh! And is the other one his sister?” 

“Of course. They are as like as two peas. They 
have the same face.” 

“And how do you know them?” 

“T’ve met them here. The other day I came to fix up 
the garden. It was in an awful condition... You should 
see it now. I think the pastor likes plants. His sister 
bosses everything.” 

“And the wife?” 

“T don’t know, she seems to be a poor old soul.” 

“Poor woman! What’s the matter with her?” 

The colonist did not answer, for noticing that his 
words were being overheard, he turned to his Bible and 
hypocritically pretended to be absorbed in it. 

From the pulpit the pastor continued his sermon, vainly 
attempting to warm up to it, shouting and roaring his 
religion. His voice then fell into a monotonous singsong. 


) 


144 CANAAN 


On the other side, opposite Milkau, sat Felicissimo, 
very nervous, showing unmistakable signs of impatience. 
The surveyor turned his eyes towards his friends of the 
Doce river, hung his head down in mock resignation, and 
distorted his mobile face into a thousand grimaces. Lentz 
could not help remarking contemptuously to Milkau, who 
was enjoying himself watching the surveyor: “What a 
monkey!” The magistrates were not at all resigned to 
the ennui of the ceremony. The three of them sat 
together in a pew, near the pulpit, and solemnly faced the 
crowd. The oldest, who was the judge, could not keep 
still; he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his fore- 
head, which was all wrinkled in a frown; he cleaned his 
monocle, which was badly adjusted to his right eye and 
fell down, forcing him to repeat the performance. Next 
to him, the prosecutor clenched his fists, bored to death, 
tightened his lips, shook his leg, and looked with disdain 
and hatred at the crowd. The other one, the municipal 
judge, stroked his beard for want of something else to do, 
stretched himself in the pew, spread out his legs, and 
yawned. At times he whispered to the judge, and the 
latter, mechanically placing the monocle in his eye, as if 
to hear better, smiled courteously and goodnaturedly. 

The Germans, full of respect, did not move; they con- 
centrated their attention on the prayer books, or, with 
their eyes shut, turned to the empty abyss of their spirits, 
which they beheld stupified and confused, without a 
quiver or a thought. 

Tedium reigned supreme in the chapel until the new 
pastor finished his sermon, and then the music of the 
organ and the voices of the singers came like a flock of 
wild birds to raise the spirits of the congregation. The 


CANAAN 145 


three pastors gathered at the back of the church and read 
thé psalms by turns; the music stopped for a while to 
give way to a chorus in which the congregation took part. 
The old pastor of Luxemburgo wore glasses; his face 
was clean-shaven and his rough voice kept dying down. 
The pastor of Altona wore a short rough beard and had 
a cheeky, insolent air about him. Between them, the 
new pastor of Jequitiba, very big and with soft eyes, 
appeared like a timid giant. In a little while the service 
was over; the pastors sat down and watched the congre- 
gation leaving the church quietly, slowly, charmed by the 
music, carrying with them the remembrance of the songs. 
Outside, they were blinded by the sun for a moment, and 
hastened to depart. They untied the beasts, gathered up 
and hid under the saddles the feeding bags, and in a 
little while men and women were mounted and the mob 
descended down the slope like the dark waters of a river 
that has suddenly found a way through the green turf. 
They went along slowly; nobody hurried, for fear of a 
dangerous panic. From the thousand mouths of the mob 
came comments, jokes, boisterous Jaughter, shouts of 
joy which disturbed the tranquility of the peaceful 
countryside. Milkau and his companion also went down 
the hill, sharing in the general joy, forgetting themselves 
the better to become a part of the gathering which chance 
and social instinct had brought together. Down below, 
where the roads met, the people began to disband; some 
went right ahead, galloping along the road enveloped in a 
cloud of dust, others ran even on foot; the women 
gathered up their skirts as a measure of economy, and 
covered their heads with them; while the men took off 
their boots and shoes and carried them in their hands. 


146 CANAAN 


The people disappeared along the roads in quest of their 
houses or of the taverns where they were wont to spend 
their Sundays. Milkau turned round. Someone was 
tapping him on the shoulder. It was Felicissimo, who 
was riding a donkey. 

“Man, I am very glad to see you .. . It is such a long 
time since we met last! And where are you going now?” 

“Home, of course,’ answered Milkau. 

“T would propose...” 

“What?” asked Lentz, interrupting him. 

“To go to Jacob Muller’s house, where there is a great 
dance to-night. Even now they must have started the 
fun.” 

“But we haven’t been invited... 

“Well! Pil be blowed ... You don’t need any invita- 
tions here in the colony. As soon as you know that 
there is going to be a feast, all you have to do is to come, 
for that's part:or, thecames )) 2) i202 

“What game?” asked Milkau. 

“What game?’ echoed the surveyor. “Then you 
don’t know? The fellow arranges a feast with a view 


3) 


to selling a lot of eats, beer and other things . . . Come 
on, let’s go there. It is true that I am riding and we 
can’t go together . . . But what does that matter? The 


road is here on the left; you go down and then up, and 
when you reach the top you will find a little house and 
store. Go past it, take to the right and then keep right 
on; you can’t miss it. When you come to a twotstorey 
house with a big yard in front of it, that’s it. You 
simply can’t make a mistake: the house is in holiday garb 
and you will recognize it at once.” 

The two friends consulted each other with a look, as 


“ CANAAN 147 
if they did not know what to do, but Lentz was not long 
in ahswering. 

“All right, we'll go.” 

“That’s the stuff! That’s the way I like young 
fellows, without any stories or nonsense,” exclaimed 
the surveyor, beaming with joy. ‘Always ready for fun. 
Well, I have to go... Ill go ahead and tell them to 
reserve three covers at the table for us... I have a lot to 
tell you.” 

And he pointed with his free hand to his tongue. Then, 
greatly excited, he shook his head hurriedly and burst 
into laughter. “So long.’ He spurred his donkey 
fiercely, whipped him, gave a yell and went away at a 
gallop, frightening the colonists with his shouts and 
galloping. Milkau and Lentz followed his instructions 
and hurried along the road. 

At the top there really was a store where already 
several persons had gathered in groups, all of them 
happy. The tavern was clean, kept in order, and had 
two large doors. Inside, standing against the counter, 
the Germans drank beer made at Cachoeiro; some of 
them took eau-de-vie; some women approached the men 
and they all saluted each other pleasantly and offered 
each other drinks. The mistress of the house and her 
daughter—a reddish young woman—busied themselves 
attending to the customers. Outside, in a great piazza 
which ran along one side of the house, sheltered by 
creepers, several families sat at rustic tables having their 
dinner, served by the landlord. 

“How this shadow invites you to rest!” exclaimed 
Lentz, who was fatigued by the sun. 


148 CANAAN 


“We'll stay here a little while and then continue on 
our way at leisure,” said Milkau. 

“No ... If you are not dead, let us go on; for I 
suspect that if we stop in this house, I’ll never go out. 
into the sun again!” 

And away they went, casting a longing glance at the 
noisy piazza, where the green leaves of the creepers 
formed a sort of frame for the simple, vivid colors of the 
women’s dresses. 

On the road they saw a lot of people who were wend- 
ing their way towards the house of the festival. And 
when they arrived at the summit of the hill, they saw, 
away down, a swift little stream, and on the bank the two- 
storey house, and even at that distance they could see a 
crowd moving about. : 

“Let us hurry,” said Lentz. “Never mind if we get 
tired; we can take a good rest down there.” 

“All right! We are going down, any way. It is lots 
easier.” 

Boys and girls passed by them, running down the 
hill, shouting with joy, anxious to arrive at the house in 
plenty of time. The sight gave Milkau and Lentz a 
desire to run, to lose themselves in the joy that pervaded 
the atmosphere in the exhilaration of the descent. And 
they ran too; but in a little while they stopped and smiled 
at each other, somewhat ashamed of themselves. 

“Well, well,’ said Lentz, “here we are running like 
kids! Following their example.” 

“Tt wasn’t that that made me stop, but we were simply 
out of breath,” said Milkau surprised at his own display 
of youthfulness and happy with the idea that his mind - 


CANAAN 149 


was still young. After all, he thought, nature must 
reassert her rights... 

His nerves relaxed, and the flood of light put him in a 
mysterious and unbreakable harmony with the ever- 
green, glorious world of Youth. 

He lifted his head with satisfaction, shaking his golden 
beard. His blue eyes were radiant with peacefulness, 
and with a step full of gracefulness and majesty he 
descended the mountain. 

The neighborhood of Jacob Muller’s house was alive 
with the people that had gathered there. Several on 
foot and on horseback, came from the chapel at Jequitiba, 
others from Santa Theresa and from Cachoeiro. The 
house was beautifully situated at the meeting of several 
roads and was one of the great business centers in the 
interior of the colony. On Sundays it was visited by 
the colonists and even by strangers and by the clerks 
from the city. It was a white building at the end 
of a valley and on the margin of a charming brook 
which hurriedly descended from the hills down to the 
Santa Maria. There were no plantations around it, but 
a green fresh turf which shone under the rays of the 
sun, surrounded it. The building stood out in great 
relief among the masses of trees and the foliage which 
covered the neighboring hills. 

As they approached the yard, a hubbub of voices met 
their ears. When they reached the house, the heat of 
the afternoon was abating and the rays of the sun were 
beginning to lose their power. They went up to the 
piazza amidst the noise and clatter of the Germans. 

“Come on, my friends, come on!” 

And Felicissimo, shouting, ran to them and dragged 


1§0 CANAAN 


them along. Lentz and Milkau, surprised at the effusive- 
ness of the surveyor, asked him where he was taking 
them. 

“We'll go and have a drink of beer.” 

“No, thanks; let us take a seat, here in the shade. We 
need a rest,” said Milkau. 

“Oh ... rot!” said the surveyor in an angry tone, and 
he left them suddenly. Milkau followed him to give an 
explanation of his refusal, but the surveyor, carried away 
by his bad temper, went away through the groups of 
Germans and entered the store. Milkau gave up the idea 
of following him and came back to Lentz, and together 
they searched for a somfortable place to sit down. They 
found one at the end of a bench, under an orange tree, 
right opposite the house. There was great animation 
among the people. Groups of girls, dressed in white, 
passed along holding each other’s hands. Young fellows, 
in their shirt sleeves, ran races on the turf and made bets. 
A swarm of children jumped and capered in the yard, 
making more noise than a flock of parrots. 

Men went into and came out of the store singing with 
the coarse voice and clumsy gestures of drunkards. The 
racket from the feet of the dancers in the upper story 
echoed in the big store, and the languorous notes of an 
indefatigable barrel-organ came from above, deafening 
the people. Many of them leant lazily against the 
windows watching the seething crowd below or contem- 
plating the landscape which seemed also to be in motion, 
carried away by the swift-moving stream. 

Milkau, who remained silent, satisfied with the con- 
templation of the other’s pleasure, saw a friendly face 
coming towards him. It was Joca, in his shirt sleeves, 


CANAAN 151 


with a handkerchief round his neck and a leather belt 
holding up his trousers. He approached Milkau with 
his mouth wide open, displaying his feline, closely set 
teeth. ) 

“Well, well! So you came to have a good time, eh? 

You have some courage. It’s quite a distance from Doce 
river to this place.” 

“We left early this morning and took it easy . 
answered Milkau. 

“That isn’t quite right,” interrupted Lentz. “I am 
dead beat ... and I am beginning to get hungry too.” 

“You won’t want for food here. Look into the store, 
over the heads of these people. See what a crowd there 
is at the counter; they look like vultures around a car- 
cass. And in the dining-room the tables are already 
crowded for dinner. What you have to do is to order 
your places in advance.” 

“Your boss took care of that,” explained Lentz, “but 
he took offence at us and forgot to tell us what he 
arranged.” 

“But he’ll come back,” said Milkau confidently, “and 
I’m sure he'll have everything fixed up. And where 
have you been, Joca?” 


” 


“Going all the time . . . Here and there and every- 

y 
where. Now we are doing some measuring over at 
Guandu ... and in a few days we'll come to Cachoeiro 


for a vacation. And how is it with you on your farm? 
I think that your house is rather pretty. How is the 
plantation?” 

“All planted.” 

“Tn the clearing we made?” 

“Yes, at the side of the house.” 


152 CANAAN 


“And when shall we drink of that coffee?” 

The answer was a motion of the hands -indicating a 
very distant period. For a moment Lentz’s cheeks 
reddened with excitement at the idea of the time that lay 
ahead of him in this curious life. 

“Now there is going to be some fun,” exclaimed the 
mulatto excitedly, looking towards the back of the house. 
“There comes the band!” 

The musicians of the band of Cachoeiro were arriv- 
ing at the establishment and everybody turned round to 
look at them. There was a great turmoil and they all 
rushed towards the bandsmen who, very slowly, as if it 
were a habit with them, walked towards a small yard 
paved with cement bricks, where Jacob Muller was 
accustomed to dry the coffee he purchased from the 
colonists. During week days, a wire fence protected the 
yard from children and animals. On Sundays, when 
there was a festival, the fence was withdrawn and 
everybody was allowed to enter the yard. Joca left 
Lentz and Milkau and went over near the musicians, 
some of whom were his friends and chums. 

“So, my boys, you were too darn lazy to move your 
fingers to-day! The young folks were getting impatient 
already . . . Old Martin has his arm stiff with playing 
that barrel-organ to amuse the people upstairs. Come 
on, boys! Let’s have some music!” ; 

And the mulatto, as happy as could be, started to 
cheer the band of Cachoeiro. A thunderous laughter 
accompanied his hurrahs. The bandsmen smiled, blushing 
with embarrassment, and took off their hats mechanically, 
acknowledging the ovation. 

The mulatto went crazy with joy and shouted more 


CANAAN 153 


Garrats for the city of Cachoeiro, for Jacob Muller, 
and for the young people gathered there. They were 
all enjoying the fun, yelling, jumping, and dancing 
without measure. The musicians sat down in a corner 
of the yard, which was wide, level and polished and 
reflected from its paving the powerful rays of the sun. 
In a moment the yard was full of these simple folks, 
easily contented, whom Joy loves and among whom she 
reigns supreme. 

When the music-stands were ready, the musicians sat 
down and began to play a march which, in the wildness 
of their enthusiasm, everybody tried to sing. Joca, 
singing martially, with his eyes wide open and his nostrils 
distended, followed a band of fair and blushing girls, 
who ran away laughing and pretending to be afraid. 
Some old men, already drunk, trailed their voices and 
made comical courtesies to some women who laughed 
uproariously. The children, in bunches, invaded the 
yard, elbowing their way through the crowd. The 
landlord, all in white—in his shirt sleeves, with a large 
straw hat on his head—appeared in the yard, and after 
talking with the conductor, began to give some orders. 
Some old women slapped him on the back, others 
pulled his beard, and he answered their blows, yelling: 

“This is for the children only! Clear the yard! Get 
out of here! You'll dance to-night!” 

And then, turning persuasively to the more obstinate 
ones: 

“Come on, old fellow, give us a hand with the 
customers. Listen! Come inside and have a drink!” 

It was an unanswerable and a profitable argument, for 
the mirage of that drink quickly led the man away from 


154 CANAAN 


the yard and increased the profits of the store. The 
older folks cleared the yard and stood around, forming 
a sort of frame for it. Then the young ones began to 
turn round and round as if they had been a wheel blown 
by the wind. 

The band finished the march and a signal was given 
that they would play a quadrille next. A tall old man, 
with a long tight coat, wearing blue spectacles, went to 
the center of the yard to direct the children’s dance. 
There was a moment of quietness then. The old man 
separated the children according to sexes, then he began 
to arrange the couples, calling each child by its name: 
“Albert and Emma,” “William and Ida,’ “Herman and 
Sophia.” Sometimes one of the youngsters protested 
against the arrangement. 

“But, professor, I am engaged to some one else. . . 

“How is that? To whom?” 

“ao Augusta Peltz. sors 

“Tt can’t be done! You are so small and she is so 
big,’ answered the old man, his jaw shaking with 
excitement. 

From among the spectators the mothers interfered, 
supported by some other feminine voices. 

“Never mind, professor. What does it matter? Let 
them choose as they please.” 

The dancing master gave in and Augusta Feltz, with 
her twelve years, long thin shanks and soft gazelle eyes, 
took her place in the quadrille, bending down her neck 
towards her partner, who, hanging on to her arm, looked 
at her with great satisfaction. 

At last the dancing master managed to arrange the 
couples and the band started a dance. The litile ones 


” 


€ANAAN 155 


were well trained so that everything went on without 
_ confusion or hitch, Some of the grown-ups amused 
themselves watching the children, but others grew weary 
of the sight and strolled around the house or down to 
the brook, where they lay down on the turf watching 
the water flow past. Some, arm in arm, like sweethearts, 
lost themselves in the jungle, some gathered in the 
balcony to drink and sing the old ditties of pleasure and 
of human conviviality, which for a moment transported 
them in their imagination to the land they had abandoned. 
In everything, the least movement, the least gesture, this 
gathering at Caja’s establishment gave the impression of 
forgetfulness and joy. 
“This is just what I was looking for,” said Milkau 
to Lentz, looking at the scene as they were walking on 
the turf to the rhythm of the music. “This is what I 


was looking for, and I have found it. . . To live amidst 
simple folks, to share in their sweet forgetfulness of 
pain, to kill hatred . . . Compare these people with 


the men of other lands, where each one seems possessed 
by the spirit of the devil, let loose on the face of the 
earth to devastate it in his attacks of madness, to struggle 
until he dies in a fit of rage. Here there is at least 
serenity, calmness and joy.” 

“But,” observed Lentz, while a disdainful smile spread 
over his face, “at bottom this is only stagnation, an empty 
and useless existence.” 

“And isn’t love the very essence of action? Isn’t 
love the force which here, in this colony, at the edge 
of the world, moves men? What more do you want?” 

They went over where the children were still dancing 
with great zest. Now there was a wheel of dancers 


156 CANAAN 


which, slow at times, swift at others, moved to the 
accompaniment of childish songs, strident, out of tune. 
And as the children were at the very height of joy, a 
man jumped into the yard dressed like a ragged clown, 
with his face painted white, and lips and cheeks smeared 
with red. He was received with a roar of laughter by 
the grown-ups, and the children stopped their dance 
scared out of their wits, opening a wide circle for the 
intruder. The clown began to jump and shout, imitating 
different animals, and in a little while, amidst the general 
joy he ran to the wheel of children with his eyes blind- 
folded in order to amuse them. 

“And why hasn’t Felicissimo looked for us, I wonder!” 
said Milkau, drawing away from the dance and taking 
his friend’s arm. 

“T don’t know. I think he mistrusts us.” 

“Let us go and look for him,” proposed Milkau. . 

“We had better, for it is time we were getting some- 
thing to eat,’ assented Lentz. 

By this time, the feeble rays of the sun were 
transforming the landscape, graduating the colors which 
seemed to emerge slowly from the secret bosom of nature 
and spread more freely over the surface of things. A 
gentle breeze cooled the air and passed lightly over the 
fair heads of the women, playing with their hair, which 
tickled them and sent a shiver down their spines. The 
peacefulness of the evening grew gradually and reigned 
supreme over these people, overpowering them with its 
sweet languor. 

“Where on earth is that surveyor? . . . Where can 
he be? . . . ” asked Lentz as he went from group to 
group, looking around. 


CANAAN 157 


“He is acting very mysteriously with us to-day .. . 
«Perhaps because we would not go and have a drink with 
him . . . We might as well have been civil to him. 
It would not have cost us anything.” 
“Yes, and we wouldn’t have lost such an idiotic 
friend,” added Lentz. 
“Now, now! You always go off atatangent... 
They looked for the surveyor all around the house. 
All to no purpose. They went as far as the brook, down 
to the main road, and searched every group in the hope 
of finding their man. All in vain. They went into the 
jungle. Under the leafy branches of a tree, two lovers 
were resting, murmuring sweet nothings. At the sight 
of the strangers the young man bashfully lowered his 
head and pretended to be gathering boughs on the ground. 
The girl, however, full of haughty dignity, dismissed 
the intruders with a serene and frank look of her eyes. 
When they emerged from the jungle, they gave up 
hunting for.Felicissimo and went straight to the house. 
The counter was as crowded as ever. They were 
drinking heavily and singing songs with a thick, 
monotonous voice. The two friends looked around the 
store but did not find the surveyor. Jacob’s wife, 
noticing their indecision, beckoned them and asked them 
what they were going to drink. Milkau, pushing some 
colonists gently aside, went over to her and inquired after 
Felicissimo. The woman advised them to go upstairs, 
to the big dining-room, at the back, for they might find 
him there, and spoke to them about the three places that 
had been reserved. Upstairs, though the front room 
was almost empty, with but a few people at the windows 
watching the children’s dance, the back room was fairly 


” 


158 CANAAN 


seething with people. At the table, a swarm of people 
ate with avidity. Others, standing, took broth from 
plates they held in their hands, or brandished sausages 
and slices of bread as they bit voraciously, their eyes 
bloodshot and staring out of their heads in the ecstacies 
of a bestial appetite satisfied. A smell of garlic, vinegar 
and pepper excited the crowd and whetted their appetite. 

Felicissimo was at one end of the table with one empty 
seat at either side, and as soon as he saw his two friends, 
he yelled at them: 

“Heret .o oe crierel? 

Lentz and Milkau made their way through the crowd 
to their seats. 

“So you made up your minds to come, did you? . . . 
I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with 
me to-day, you were so greatly taken up with one thing 
and another . . . What’s the matter with your” 

“Come on now, don’t try to twist things around,” 
said Lentz. “It was you who left us in a huff and didn’t 
bother with us any more, and we have been going around 
without anybody to show us the place. . .” 

‘Don’t tell me any stories! You must have made 
lots of friends with so many pretty girls around! . 
Come on, tell us all about it! Let’s have no secrets!” 

The German blushed and did not know how to answer. 
Milkau came to his aid. 

“Lentz does not bother about those things.” 

“You tell that to the marines! I am an old dog!” 

“Our only interest is to mix in the joy of these people, 
to understand their lives and their happiness ‘a 

Felicissimo looked at him with his small, sad, vague 


CANAAN 139 


eyes. Then with a broad, idiotic smile, he said, dragging 
his words: 

“Now, friend, don’t tell me any yarns. You just said, 
yourself, that you were trying to mix in the joy of these 
people. Well then, what more would you want than...” 

“The worst of it is, my friend, that with this discussion 
we are forgetting to get something to eat,” interrupted 
Lentz. 

“You are right!” shouted the surveyor, and rose, 
leaning with his hands on the table. 

He stood up and roared, calling the servants. At last 
a young girl was attracted by his shouts and came over 
to the surveyor and stood waiting for his order. 
Felicissimo looked at her maliciously, winked at his 
companions, and as the German girl, feeling bashful, 
started to go away, he began to speak: 

“My beauty, my love, please bring my two friends 
here the same dishes that you brought me. Let’s begin 
with some vegetable soup.” 

The servant went hurriedly away, with a graceful 
motion, as if she had been going through the measures 
of a dance. 

Felicissimo smacked his tongue, fixing his eyes on her. 

“Ah! what a life! what a life!” he said in a melancholy 
manner without knowing what he was talking about. 

He took up his glass of beer and drank. He looked 
at the empty bottle in front of him and banged on the 
table, asking them to bring him another half dozen 

“We can’t drink so much,” objected Milkau, 

“If you signed the pledge, I haven’t. I'll drink the 
whole six myself,” 

Milkau and Lentz began to eat the coarse dishes that 


160 CANAAN 


were served to them amidst disorder and racket. Some 
clerks from the city, better dressed than the colonists, 
refused the ordinary dishes and asked for canned fowl, 
which they very much enjoyed, washing it down with 
Rhine wine. Some of these fellows, who belonged to 
Robert’s establishment, recognized the old guests in the 
new colonists and saluted them with a shake of the 
head and an amiable smile. Holding up their bottles 
they offered them wine from their seats. Milkau 
thanked them with a gesture, and the clerks, indifferent 
and disdainful to the rest of the company, continued to 
drink copiously. 

Felicissimo made a great display about his drinking, 
and kicked up such a racket that he was not long in 
attracting the attention of all the diners. Excited by 
this attention, the surveyor made a show of himself in 
every way. He sang, he danced standing on the chair, 
making toasts with the glass in his hand. The colonists 
admired him with an infantile joy, while the fellows 
from the city tried to squash him with ironical applause 
and insulting phrases delivered amidst peals of laughter. 
The surveyor answered these insults by improvising 
verses in Portuguese, in that countrified tone which suited 
him so well. Many did not understand him, but the 
cadence of the verses moved them, and it was out of 
real pleasure that they begged the surveyor not to stop. 
He was willing to oblige, and by way of giving some 
variety to his repertoire he sang some German songs, 
which he murdered, but the colonists around him took 
them up with great fire and enthusiasm. There was an 
unearthly racket made up of the voices of old and 
young, increased by the sound of plates and glasses 


CANAAN 161 


struck by knives and forks, and by the strident notes of 
a barfel-organ played furiously as an accompaniment to 
the songs. Its lower notes were almost lost in the fiendish 
din, and only the sharper and shriller tones could be 
heard. The landlord, wanting to put a stop to this 
commotion, took Felicissimo by the arm and tried to 
force him off his chair. The surveyor strenuously 
objected and continued yelling. Some of the colonists 
surrounded Felicissimo to protect him from the landlord, 
and finally the latter was unceremoniously kicked out 
of the room. The surveyor ordered some beer at his 
own expense and had it passed around. Each bottle 
was grabbed from the hands of the servants, and in the 
general confusion and disorder the liquid flowed over 
the tables from the glasses upset in the fight. Milkau, 
fearing something untoward might befall the surveyor, 
suggested going out to spend the rest of the evening in 
the yard. 

“T won't budge!” shouted Felicissimo. 

And the drunken Germans echoed him, yelling 

“He won't budge! He won't budge!’ 

And thenceforth those words served as a sort of crazy 
refrain to each song. Those who were still sober laughed 
at the others and above all at the comical effect of their 
own songs, full of love and rustic idyls, tagged with the 
surveyor’s refrain. 

Milkau and Lentz found themselves in the midst of a 
crowd of lunatics who were bandying at each other 
insulting or funny phrases, and they withdrew from the 
room quietly, without any ill feeling, followed by the 
jests of those who remained behind. 

Outside, the moon was rising, and its light gradually 


162 CANAAN 


took possession of the fields which the sun had just 
abandoned. In that moment of transition the breeze was 
dying down, and they all fell under a mysterious spell 
of nostalgia and restfulness, their eyes fixed in <sace 
and lost in melancholy. In the yard the children, cred 
with their exercise, had quieted down, frightened by 
their own silence, and the smaller ones rested their sleepy 
heads on the laps of their mothers, who sat on the ground. 
The musicians gathered up their instruments and repaired 
to the house for something to eat. Milkau and Leniz 
went down to the river and walked along the bank for 
a while. They stopped and sat down on some stones. 
Later on, when it was beginning to get cold, they heard 
the music again and went back to the house. When 
they returned, they found it all lit up, and the yellow, 
warm light that shone through the windows opened up 
a circle of fire in the soft milky light of the moon. There 
was hardly anyone left in the yard. The children had 
disappeared and their elders had gone back to their 
settlements or had gathered in the dance hall. The two 
friends went upstairs to the front room where they had 
started to dance. The band was playing a slow, 
languorous waltz. There were but few dancers, for 
most people were still at table or stood timidly at the 
doors and windows. Most of the couples were made 
up of girls who, tightly grasping each other, turned round 
and round trying to encourage with their movements 
the shy lads until the latter, having gained courage, came 
and separated them and took them for their partners. 

It was not very long before the dance was in full swing. 
The room, as night went on, became more crowded, the 
band never ceased playing, and they all enjoyed them- 


CANAAN 163 


selves heartily. Now one could see the great variety of 
people gathered in Jacob’s house. Here were merchants 
from Cachoeiro, clerks from the city, cattlemen, farm 
hands and servants promiscuously gathered without any 
distinction of class. Milkau was sitting at an open 
window watching the dance. In the couples who were 
dancing a Polish dance, there passed before him a young 
woman of flexible figure and sweeping, voluptuous 
movements, easily distinguished from the other girls 
who, shapeless and heavy, were noisily dragged along 
by their partners. A man of coarse features who was 
standing near Milkau spoke about her. 

“There isn’t one can touch Louisa Wolf.” 

“You are right, she is very graceful.” 

“Ah! You've got to know her, and then you find that 
she is like that in everything. She never gets tired of 
lifting that pretty head of hers. To-morrow morning 
she’ll be working with just the same air. . .” 

“T suppose she is a colonist . . . ” 

“No, she is a servant in Cachoeiro and her master is 
the same man who is dancing with her . . . Martin Fidel. 
Don’t you know him?” 

“No.” 

“Well, he is all right. He is one of the wealthiest 
merchants in the city. The whole family is here. His 
wife is old . . . like himself . . . There she goes arm 
in arm with that tall young fellow, the one with the big 
nose. Don’t you see her? He is a colonist, and the 
son of a colonist at Jequitiba. His father is also dancing. 
That’s him, the small dapper man with the beard and the 
hat on. His partner is the servant, a sight . . .as you 
can see.” 


164 CANAAN 


The dancers continued through the martial measures 
of the Polish dance, forming various figures, now a half- 
moon, now opening up into two wings, now performing 
evolutions with men and women by themselves, meeting 
again after several turns. The movements were slow and 
heavy; moving along with an effort, they struck the floor 
with their heavy hobnailed boots, making a dry, deafening 
sound that drowned the music from the instruments. 
When the dance finished, the couples turned at once, as 
if moved by a magical spring, and with slow step went 
over to the benches that were placed along the walls, or to 
the recesses at the windows. Some of them went out into 
the yard for the cool air; lovers walked about in the 
dark with their arms around each other; old men smoked 
their pipes and passed a few remarks until the music 
began again. Then they all returned to the dance hall 
quietly, without any hurry, and started again to dance 
automatically, the men with their cheroots or their pipes 
in their mouths and their hats on, the women with 
handkerchiefs round their necks to stop the sweat that 
ran down from their foreheads. 

Milkau was all alone. The man who had been speaking 
of Louisa Wolf, had tired of talking to him about the 
colony and its inhabitants. Lentz had not been in the 
dance hall for a while and his friend thought that, 
perhaps tired by the simple, monotonous dances of the 
colonists, he had gone down to the yard and was walking 
about all by himself. Felicissimo would not leave the 
dining room, where he continued to drink and sing with 
his German friends. From time to time, at the least 
pause in the music, their loud joyful voices reached the 
dance hall. 


CANAAN 165 


» Two women sat down in the same bench next to 
Milkau. He recognized in one of them the girl who had 
looked at him during his dream in the chapel. They 
were close to him now, those big, caressing eyes in 
which he could see floating sad images which perhaps 
were the life and love of the girl. She was panting and 
seemed exhausted, and sat down in the greatest abandon. 
She looked furtively at her neighbor and at times she 
even dared to look him straight in the eyes with a happy, 
innocent expression. She had a certain beauty and an 
elegance uncommon among the colonists. Her carriage 
was graceful, her bust erect and of delicate curves. Her 
white hands, perhaps a little too long, extended from her 
arms like greyhounds’ heads. But what gave her an 
air of superiority was her wide forehead, her fluffy, silky 
red hair, the expression of her mouth—a somewhat 
colorless mouth, but moist and kindly. 

The band started again after a while, playing a waltz, 
and the dancers took to the floor. It was then that 
Milkau spoke to his neighbor. 

“Don’t you dance?” 

She was not frightened in the least by his voice and 
quickly answered: 

“No. I can’t dance. I am not feeling very well. But 
if you want a partner, here is my friend who is a great 
waltzer.” 

And with a loving, almost maternal gesture, she 
touched the other girl’s hand and let her caress her, as 
if she were accustomed to her friend’s loving ways. 

Milkau felt somewhat confused and excused himself 
explaining that he could not dance. 


166 CANAAN 


“That’s what I say when I don’t feel well,” said the 
girl, “but no one believes me. That’s often the way .. .” 

And she smiled a little. Her voice was an intimate, 
sonorous song, something as if a veil were being torn 
which concealed the delightful image of her soul. And 
as is the case with every human voice, her accent r-vealed 
her personality. The voice, which expresses the music 
of the soul, enables us to perceive the secret qualities 
of the mind, the nobility or grossness of the race or the 
moral group to which we belong. 

A lad approached them, and without saying a word, 
according to their manner, took one of the girls by the 
wrist and dragged her away for a dance. The girl 
turned round beaming with happiness and said to her 
chum: 

“Mary, where will you wait for me? . . . I don’t 
want to lose you. I have a lot to tell you. . .” 

“Tl wait for you right here. I'll be in this bench or 
at the window.” 

When the girl had gone, led by her partner, Mary 
said to Milkau: 

“Don’t you think she is rather pretty? She is the 
daughter of a colonist at Luxemburgo. We hadn’t seen 
each other for a long time. This was a real treat 
LOR MISt ar t 

“T see! . . . We have been going around with this 
crowd since the early morning. I remember seeing you 
at the chapel at Jequitiba,” said Milkau. 

“Yes! That’s right. I remember that we weren’t very 
far from each other.” 

“And I’m ashamed to say that I fell asleep!” 


CANAAN 167 


“Mary blushed, but she quickly resumed the 
conversation. 


“The heat was terrible . . . and the pastor was not 
very entertaining . . . was he?” 
“T don’t know . . . On the contrary, I had a 


wonderful sensation of comfort, and sleep came and 
took me away in a cloud of happiness.” 

“Ah, well!” she exclaimed, and then she added 
confidingly: “At times, I think it were better for us to 
spend our lives sleeping . . .” 

“T am beginning to think that you are a very lazy 
8 Meee 

“Me? . . . Never!’ answered the girl sharply. “It 
isn’t laziness . . . It would be to forget my worries 
that I would like to fall into a long and profound 
sleep...) ...-” 

The phrase ended in a vague, resigned voice. 

“Worries? I think I know the simple things that you 
call by that sad name,” observed Milkau. 

She lowered her eyes but did not answer. When she 
raised them again, she changed the subject. 

“How lovely it is to dance!” 

She affectionately waved her lovely hand to her friends 
as they passed before her dancing the waltz. 

Milkau was beginning to find pleasure in talking to the 
girl, who for her part did not feel the least embarrass- 
ment and spoke freely as if she had been talking to an old 
acquaintance. 

When the music stopped, the couples separated and 
each of the dancers went in a different direction. 

“You see,” said Mary to her friend, “I waited for 
you right here.” 


168 CANAAN 


“T knew it. And now, do you want to take a walk or 
shall we remain here?” asked her friend panting, as she 
instinctively sat down. 

“Oh! my goodness! Talk about walking . . . and” 
you can hardly stand! No, my dear, take a rest for a 
little while.” 3 

“Perhaps,” observed Milkau, “it would be better for 
your chum to sit at the window. There are several empty 
chairs there. Let us go over. The fresh air will restore 
her strength.” 

They stood up and the girls rushed to the chairs for 
fear some other people might take them. When they 
reached the window they looked at the picture outside. 
The whole landscape was flooded by the whitish light of 
the moon; the clouds, descending from the sky, had 
vanished towards the horizon and the vaporous expanse, 
free, starless, colorless, was gradually turning into a 
polished, transparent sheet of purest crystal. The 
moonlight softened the green shades of the trees; the 
brook flowed rumbling by; a gentle breeze shook the 
branches of the trees whose long shadows kept dancing 
incessantly. 

“What’s that?” asked Mary frightened by a roar of 
voices that reached the dance hall from the dining room. 

They all turned around to find out the cause of the 
disturbance. A great discussion in loud shrill voices 
was taking place, interrupted now and then by thunderous 
peals of laughter. Still, Mary and her chum did not feel 
at ease, thinking that there was a fight on. Milkau went 
out to see what was the matter and returned in a few 
moments. 

“It’s nothing. The surveyor, Felicissimo, is of opinion 


CANAAN 169 


“that there have been enough German dances, and that it 
is about time they were having some Brazilian ones. . . 
The musicians don’t know how to play them; the lads 
protest against an innovation which they don’t under- 
stand; the surveyor insists, he tries a few steps, whistles, 
tries to force the musicians to play...” 

“And what’s the outcome of it all?” asked Mary. 

“The outcome of it all is that Felicissimo will have 
his own way and we shall see some native dances.” 

And right enough, the surveyor managed to have his 
own way. After several unsuccessful trials he got the 
musicians to play a tune the measures of which resembled 
more or less those of a native dance. Having agreed on 
this tune, the musicians took up their instruments and 
the people anxiously ran to the dance hall to secure good 
places, laughing uproariously the while. There followed 
an expectant silence. Nobody moved in the hall, which 
had been cleared for the dance. Most people were sitting 
down and a few stood at the doors and windows. 
Felicissimo stood close to the musicians, humming the 
tune. It wasn’t long before the instruments were tuned 
up and the band started a slow, voluptuous dance. 
Felicissimo, with unsteady step, his eyes squinting out 
of his head, walked over to the center of the hall and 
in a shaky voice yelled: 

“My friends! . . . this is the chorado!” 

Raising and lowering his arms, he tried at the same 
time to make his fingers crack. But his sleepy hands 
produced no sound. The music sighed languorously, and 
the lonely dancer, in the middle of the room, went 
through a series of idiotic, meaningless contortions. He 
turned on himself, crouched down, dragged his leg, but 


170 CANAAN 


none of his motions kept time with the music. They 
laughed at him, thinking his performance stupid and 
grotesque. The surveyor’s drunkenness was complete, 
and incapacitated him entirely. Felicissimo turned round 
a few more times and finally, as if with the pitching of 
a ship, his body fell quickly, violently against one of the 
walls. There was pandemonium. Some ran away from 
the place, scared to death; some screamed with fright, 
others laughed at the whole performance. The surveyor 
leant against the wall with one hand, thus saving his 
head, and fell heavily into a chair. Through sheer 
enthusiasm and pleasure, the band continued to play. 
Felicissimo still attempted to get up, but his neighbors 
held him down to his chair, afraid of some untoward 
accident. He let them hold him, thanking them with 
one of those tender, sheepish looks peculiar to drunken 
men. 

For some time nobody moved, and the music continued 
to play its long, sad measures. But, suddenly, like a 
faun of old, Joca burst into the room and began to dance. 
His native soul forgot for a moment his painful 
ostracism in his own native country, among people from 
foreign lands. Carried away by the music, which spoke 
to his very soul, the mulatto was transported beyond 
himself and seemed to be transfigured by his intense and 
extraordinary happiness. His whole body moved with 
but one rhythm; his erect head took on an expression of 
endless pleasure; his mouth, with its serrated teeth, was 
half opened by a smile; his hair waved freely, stood on 
end or fell languidly over his brow; his feet flew at times 
over the floor or remained in one spot while his legs 
shook violently in the frenzy of the dance; his hands 


CANAAN 17I 
4 
hung down while he cracked his fingers, or were joined 
when his arms were extended in the air in front of him, 
or clasped above his head; and drunk with music, stand- 
ing on the tips of his toes, with arms outstretched, he 
seemed to be trying to fly. At times he ran along the 
room, shaking his body, with his feet close together in 
short, quick steps; again, following the measures of the 
music, he glided languidly along, pensively, with his head 
hanging down and his eyes wide open, and he went over 
to some woman, almost on his knees, hesitating, desiring 
to carry her away in a fit of voluptuousness which he 
succeeded in repressing but which one could guess 
was feverish, fiery. Suddenly he stood up with a tigerish 
jump and returned to his frenzy as if seized by some 
satanic fit. His whole body shook all over violently and 
his motions were so rapid that he gave one the impression 
of standing still in the air as if he had been a humming- 
bird. At that moment the band could have stopped 
playing, thus upsetting the dance; Joca would not have 
perceived the silence of the instruments, for in his 
triumphal body, in his rare happiness, with the impulse 
of his soul, living, breathing in: the old dance of his race, 
he was, all of him, motion, vibration, music. 

The scene, with the lonely actor, continued for some 
time. Joca then looked for a partner, a woman who 
would answer his appeal and could accompany him in 
his evolutions. No one came, no one felt an impulse 
to run, to fly with the rhythm of that dance. They all 
felt curiosity, but nothing more. Disheartened, seized 
by sudden sadness, by the remembrance of the girl- 
companions of his youth, of the black women who felt 
as he did, he grew gradually tired . . . His breast 


172 CANAAN 


heaved, his brownish legs did not shake with the same 
energy as before or with the vigorous flexibility of a 
bow-stick. 

Exhausted, he bent down his tired body, and the last 
interpreter of the national dances abandoned the ground 
to the conquerors, to other music, to other dances. It 
was the German waltz, clear, long, flowing like a river. 


In the hall the couples danced furiously. Mary’s 
friend was among them. Outside, the moon shone more 
clearly and the shadows shortened and became more 
fixed. A couple whispered at one of the windows, 
forgetting to dance. It was a long, interminable, 
whispering dialogue. For a moment the girl raised her 
voice and full of passion, she exclaimed, as in the old 
ballad: Obich dich liebe? Frage den Stern... Mary 
quivered when she heard the love song, and without 
knowing what she was doing, raised her eyes to the sky, 
looked at the moon and murmured in a low tremulous 
voice: 

“Ont ner& blow: Sadilvs <.aiec 

Milkau’s thoughts, as if obeying some mysterious call, 
turned to the dead satellite. He imagined the solitude 
of a world without life, travelling like a corpse along the 
road to infinity . . . He thought that perhaps some day 
all life would end in this radiant, wicked, happy Earth, 
and an immense sorrow and a great silence would reign 
over this same spot, so full now of movement and 
happiness. And for how many had not the isolation, 
which is the beginning of death, already started? . . . 
He thought about his own life, his destiny; about the 
isolation in which he was spending his own existence, 


CANAAN 173 
“s 
enveloped as if in an impalpable veil which did not allow 
him to go into the world and prevented the world from 
coming to him. His life, sad, without a mate, his chaste 
and mystic life was worse than the eternal cold . 

The dance ended and the hour of parting arrived. An 
old woman came to Mary at the window and called 
her. The girl bade Milkau good-bye, as if he had been 
an old acquaintance whom she would meet again the 
following day. Milkau, already recovered from the 
momentary fit of despondency, went to look for Lentz 
and found him among some colonists in the yard, in 
the open air. 

“Well!” said Lentz jovially, “I thought you were going 
to be the last person to leave this house! I didn’t know 
you were so terribly fond of fun.” 

“T amused myself watching how happy the others 
were, and wanted to leave you free to enjoy yourself 
in your own way.” 

“T have been here talking about Germany with these 
friends. And we also spoke of a future Germany, of 
a Germany which is to come. . . Isn’t that so, friends?” 

The others applauded the prophecy. 

“All right! said Milkau, “let us be going home now.” 

“Come on, then! Good-bye, friends. See you again 
some day!” 

For hours and hours they traversed the same road they 
had followed in the morning. Suddenly, after passing 
a huge plantation, beautiful with the velvety blackness 
of the coffee plants, on the side of a majestic mountain, 
they began to see black crosses and white stones among 
the coffee plants. 

“What is this?” asked Lentz. 


174 CANAAN 


“A cemetery!” answered Milkau. 

And he added: 

“You see, in Canaan there is no place for Death. 
The earth makes as little room for tombs as possible, 
and they, scattered here and there on the side of the 
mountain, cannot darken the light or cast a shadow on 
Life, which obliterates them in the glory of her triumph.” 


CHAPTER Viz 


ARY could nc. forget the brief moments of 

M her meeting with Milkau. Many of the 

stranger's words had become fixed in her 

mind and she kept the remembrance of the day of the 

dance as a quiet holiday for her soul, as a ray of light in 
the bitterness of her life. 

The history of Mary Perutz was as simple as wretched- 
ness itself. She was born in the colony, in the same 
house where she still lived. The daughter of immigrants, 
she did not know her father, who had died in the big shed 
at Victoria shortly after arriving in Brazil. The 
widowed mother—almost a pauper—hired herself out as 
a servant in the house of old Augusto Kraus, an old 
colonist who had settled at Jequitiba, far away from the 
Porto do Cachoeiro. The “settlement’’ was prosperous 
and the other inhabitants consisted of a married son and 
a grandson who was Mary’s senior by one year. They 
lived quietly and the two children grew up like brother 
and sister, and old Augusto, having reached the end of 
that circle in which ages meet, amused himself in filling 
the souls of the children with remembrances of his own 
life and the far away things of his Germanic country. 
Mary had forgotten her mother’s death, which must have 
happened in her remote infancy without even leaving a 
trace in her memory. Her family and her home were 
these people and this house in which she had been 


[175] 


176 CANAAN 


sheltered. Knowing nothing of her own history, she 
lived unconsciously for many years, without noticing the 
world from which she could not be distinguished and of 
which she formed an integral part in her great innocence. 
To live a pure life, to live for the sake of life in complete 
happiness, is to adapt oneself definitely to the Universe, 
as the trees live. To feel life is to suffer; conscience is 
only awakened by pain. 

Mary’s greatest friend was the old man. Mary, grown 
up into a young woman, looked after him as if he were 
a child. She talked to him for hours, she sang to him 
songs the sense of which she did not understand, fabulous 
loves, legends, strange countries, but which to the tired 
and nostalgic soul of the colonist were as intelligible and 
welcome as the sun itself. They only separated at night, 
after supper. Then the old man went to the yard and 
sitting down on the dried trunk of a tree began to smoke, 
musing the while. His dream was always the same, a 
violent desire to return to his native country, to see again 
those silent Silesian mountains where, as a child, he had 
slept while tending the flocks. In those days he knew by 
name the solitary stars. He had watched them, like so 
many convicts marching through the blue firmament, until 
during his journey to Brazil, while the boat was rolling 
and pitching, they came down from the heavens towards 
the waters and one evening they disappeared and were 
exchanged for others... But even in this new world now 
and then came some of the old friends as if they had 
become separated from their companions, and he saluted 
them by their names with childish joy. And it was to 
see the old stars that old Augusto sat down in the open 
air until he fell into a gentle sleep, as if he had been a 


CANAAN 177 


bird. The womenfolks, Emma, the daughter-in-law, and 
Mafy, busied themselves fixing the beds, and when the 
task was done and there was silence again, Mary went 
out to the old man and awoke him very gently. She put 
her arm around his waist and led him to his room and 
put him to bed, in a bed soft and cosy like a mountain of 
cotton wadding. One night—and it was the last—the 
girl found the old man prone on the ground and as cold 
as ice. 

After the old man died, Mary’s position in the family 
became gradually modified. Sorrow already had entered 
her mind and was showing her the disillusionments of 
existence. The avarice of the colonists, the masters of 
the house, who were afraid that the life of their son and 
the girl under the same roof might lead into some love 
affair, clearly showed her that there must be a separation 
sooner or later. Yet, in spite of all the precautions she 
had taken, Mary became young Moritz Kraus’ mistress. 
This love affair, like all love affairs in the colony, ought 
to have ended in marriage. Mary, at least, hoped so. 
But the cupidity of the old people did not allow things to 
take their ordinary course. They wanted their son to 
marry Emily Schenker, one of the richest maids of the 
place. It was not a mere distinction of classes which led 
them to separate Moritz from Mary, for among the 
colonists there are no class distinctions, as they all come 
from the same origin. It was only greed, the desire to 
have Moritz marry into the family of the Schenkers. 
And so, the parents, without even suspecting to what pass 
the relations between Moritz and the servant had come, 
decided to cut short a simple inclination which social 
prejudices might force into a permanent union. They 


178 CANAAN 


agreed to send their son to another colony, far from 
Jequitiba, where they got him a job as a laborer, hoping 
that he would forget his love, while they influenced the 
mind of the Schenkers to bring about the desired mar- 
riage. 

Mary was astonished to see the docility of her lover, 
who agreed to his parents’ plan even with pleasure. She 
was utterly abandoned. She had no means of communi- 
cating with Moritz nor strength of mind enough to 
demand a marriage. Who was she but a poor miserable 
servant who could be thrown at any moment into the 
street? How could she thwart with her person, with her 
desires and ambitions, the plans of the family? To the 
boy, that liaison was the simple consequence of living in 
company with a lass, nothing but the result of animal 
desires, and since they offered him another woman who 
had plenty of money, he was satisfied and willing to 
marry her. 

By degrees Mary changed. She was not the same 
strong and supple servant. A great discouragement 
seized her, and from time to time—due not only to her 
mental distress but also to the mysterious derangement 
of her organism—she became dizzy, a cold sweat bathed 
her forehead, and nausea turned her stomach. When in 
the coffee plantation she was suddenly seized by these 
fits, she abandoned her task, threw herself on the ground 
in the scorching sun, her yellow hair mixed with the 
green of the jungle. Her bosom heaved and she opened 
her dress with a gesture of despair, her mouth grew 
watery, her half-closed eyes lost themselves in the blue 
of the sky and everything, earth and sky, rocked as if 
she had been at sea... It was with joy that she went 


CANAAN 179 


to the fair at the colony, thinking that she might meet 

~Moritz. The lad, however, was not at the chapel nor at 
the ball at Jacob Muller’s, and Mary, feeling more and 
more wretched, rebellious against her inexorable fate, 
had the painful experience of mixing with the joyous 
people, trying to smother her anxieties, keeping back her 
tears while she heard the phrases and pledges of other 
people’s loves which reached her ears and increased her 
agony. That is why she did not forget her conversa 
tion with Milkau. His words, without significance, 
without meaning, empty even, were all the same 
permeated with an infinite kindness which fell upon her 
as a refreshing balsam... In her distress, in her despair, 
living within herself as if hypnotized, she clung to the 
remembrance of that conversation as if it had been an 
oasis in the immense wretched desert of her new life. 
Who was he? \Vhen would she see him again? ... She 
knew that everything had passed as a bird passes through 
the air, but she was afraid to bring back to her memory 
those moments to which her feeble mind and infirm 
imagination, distorting everything in a sweet conspiracy, 
were giving, little by little, another meaning, another 
feeling, stronger, more expressive. 

One morning the master of the house was going out to 
the neighboring plantation when a mulatto, riding a 
horse, came slowly up to him. 

“Are you Franz Kraus?” asked the mulatto from his 
horse, unfolding a paper which he pulled out of his 
pocket. 

The colonist replied in the affirmative. 

“Well, then, take note of this.” And he handed the 
paper to the colonist with a disdainful gesture. 


180 CANAAN 


Kraus looked the paper over but, although he had been 
thirty years in Brazil, he could not read Portuguese and 
he stood quite embarrassed. 

Ti cant read)... Whatasitr ? 

“That’s it! You live in this country all your lives and 
you stay always the same,” grumbled the mulatto. “I 
have been going around here from house to house, and 
always the same thing: Nobody knows our language . . 
What people!” 

The colonist was offended by the insolent tone. He 
was going to answer in a rage, but the mulatto continued: 

“Know then that this is an order from the court. It 
is an order from his honor the municipal judge, that you 
present an inventory of the estate of your father, 
Augusto Kraus. Wasn’t that his name? The court sits 


here, to-morrow, at noon... The court will spend the 
night in your house. Get something ready to eat... the 
best. And the rooms ... There are three judges, the 


lawyer and myself, for I am a sheriff and I also count.” 

The colonist, on hearing the word “court,” pulled off 
his hat submissively, and stood as if he had been struck 
by lightning. 

“Get everything ready for the inventory. Hide 
nothing, otherwise you will go to jail. Did you hear me? 
All right!) Good bye! That’s all I have to say. I don’t 
leave you the summons because it would be no use to 
VOU Sj. 

He spurred his donkey and went away at a slow trot 
in the direction of the road. Before passing the gate, he 
turned round towards the house. Kraus stood rooted 
to the same spot, turning his hat in his hands. The 
mulatto shouted to him: 


CANAAN 181 


“Board and lodging for five! Don’t forget!’ 

He disappeared and the colonist remained in the same 
attitude for a while longer. The magic name of “court” 

had scared him. In the colony, when one spoke of 
tribunals and law suits they all were terrified. Law and 
Right there had an awesome prestige. 

Franz Kraus had no heart to go to work. He went 
back into the house. His wife, seeing him so strangely 
dejected, dragged from him word by word the story of 
the summons. Afterwards, both were dumb the whole 
day. Mary tried to comfort them, but their terror, a 
terror as if death had visited their house, only increased 
her own sadness, depriving her of whatever energy she 
had to amuse her masters. It was afternoon before she 
could manage to remind them of the guests of the 
morrow and that it was to their own advantage to receive 
them in the best possible fashion. Realizing this, Franz 
got busy, and helped by Emma and the servant, began 
to fix up the house. The women killed chickens, 
prepared the black bread of the colonists, and got the 
house ready, searching all trunks forgotten in the rooms. 
Everything was done after consultation, for each one, as 
happens in days of sorrow, sought the advice of the 
others, seeking support for his cowardice. 

The following morning the settlement was ready. 
Kraus, with his Sunday clothes on, was pacing nervously 
up and down the yard, awaiting the arrival of the magis- 
trates. The women, also dressed in their best clothes, 
worked continuously in the kitchen. 

It was past noon when the judges made their lordly 
entrance into the settlement. The magistrates rode 
excellent horses: which, according to custom, had been 


182 CANAAN 


loaned by the rich merchants of Cachoeiro. The 
colonist ran to receive them, hat in hand, solicitous in 
helping them to get off their mounts. One of the judges 
gave him his horse, while the others tied theirs to the 
trees, and all of them dusted off their boots with their 
whips and stamped their feet loudly on the ground. 

“IT am dead tired!” exclaimed the municipal judge 
stretching himself. 

“A swindle! Four hours’ journey . . . You come 
because it is your duty, but we, myself and my colleague, 
who have nothing to do with this business, only came 
for the trip! Well, we must kill time some way... ” 
said the judge, looking at the prosecutor with his 
monocle. 

“Excuse me, but won’t I have occasion to do any- 
thing?” asked the prosecutor, adjusting his blue 
spectacles. 

“Why! That’s right too, mister curator of orphans...” 

“There is nothing of that sort here... All of them, my 
dear doctor, are of age,” interrupted an old mulatto of 
olive complexion with a mocking smile, whose features 
and restless expression made him look like a maracaja 
cat, hence the name they had given him. He was the 
lawyer. 

“But, gentlemen, let us go in... The house is ours in 
the name of the law,” said the judge, walking towards 
the door. 

“But where is that idiot who is to give us the inven- 
tory?” arrogantly asked the prosecutor. 

“The fool is all this time looking after our horses and 
leaves us here at God’s mercy,” explained the lawyer. 

And they all walked noisily about the living room, 


CANAAN 183 


striking the furniture with their whips, and cursing or 
laughing at the poor pictures that hung on the walls, or 
turning their noses towards the kitchen whence came an 
appetizing smell of cooking. 

“Delicious, that smell! It promises well!” exclaimed 
the judge. 

“Come out here, pretty wench!” shouted the prosecu- 
tor, laughing. “Is there any one in there?” 

Hearing all this racket, Kraus ran to the living room 
all confused, as if he had already broken the law, and 
stood like a servant awaiting orders. 

“Bring some paraty!” ordered the lawyer. “We want 
it first class.” 

The colonist disappeared to come back in a little while 
with a decanter and one glass. 

“Are there no more glasses in this house?” asked the 
lawyer disdainfully. 

The colonist went out again and returned, muttering 
excuses and placed four glasses on the table. 

“Come on, gentlemen!” shouted the prosecutor. 

He took up the decanter and poured some liquid in the 
judge’s glass. 

“Doctor Itapecuru, being the most learned... ” 

And he went on filling the other glasses, 

“Do you wish some?” 

“Just a little, a mere trifle.” 

“There you are. Don’t be afraid.” 

“Mister lawyer,” continued the prosecutor, as he went 
on filling the glasses. 

“But, Doctor Brederodes, you positively insult me with 
the glass almost full.” 


184 CANAAN 


Laughing, quite happy, the “Maracaja” began to drink, 
smacking his lips. 

“It tastes good... These foreign blackguards, the first 
thing they do in our country is to get acquainted with 
paraty.” 

“My dear gentlemen, one question,’ said Brederodes. 
“Can an officer of justice drink before court?” 

Standing at the door, the mulatto was waiting his turn. 
The others laughed without answering the question. 

“Just to clarify your ideas, Doctor..” And, some- 
what suspicious, the mulatto came to the table extending 
his arm. 

“There you are! Afterwards you'll forget to ring the 
bell and the suit will be null and void.” 

“No fear of that!” 

At a gulp he swallowed the paraty, for fear he should 
lose it. A wave of blood darkened his face; his eyes, 
full of tears, became tinged with red. 

“Tsn’t that fellow going to give us our lunch? It is 
getting kind of late .. . Look after that, lawyer. You 
are our majordomo,” said Dr. Itapecuru, looking at his 
understrapper with his monocle. 

The lawyer went into the next room in search of the 
colonist. When he returned he said: 

“Let’s go and have lunch. The fellow had everything 
ready. The best thing to do is to cut out our ceremonies 
and to take possession of the house, because if we wait 
for these people to make a move we'll never get anything 
done. Let’s get out of here. Listen, if you wish to 
wash your hands, there’s the place.” 

He pointed to the room; they all followed him into a 


CANAAN 185 


chamber with two tall beds with straw mattresses, soft 
and comfortable. 

The municipal judge felt with great pleasure one of 

» the beds: 

“Ah! what a divine sleep one could have here!” 

“But, what is this? Two beds only, and we are four!” 
observed the prosecutor with suspicion. 

“Here, on this side there is another room.” And 
opening a door in the partition, the lawyer showed it to 
them. 

“We won't get out of here to-day, will we?” in- 
quired the judge. “Well, then, I’m going to make myself 
at home. Manuel, give me my slippers.” 

The officer obeyed. The judge’s colleagues followed 
his example, and when the three had changed their 
clothes and washed themselves, they walked back into the 
living room, where the lunch was ready for them, just as 
if they had been in their own homes. 

They ate with a hearty appetite the colonial viands and 
drank beer in great quantities. The master of the house 
and the officer attended to the table, and it was only at 
the end of the meal that Mary, who had been all the time 
in the kitchen, came in with the coffee. The only woman 
amidst all these men, she felt shy and grew red, feeling 
instinctively the cruelty and lasciviousness of their looks. 

“Fiello there! . . . Fine fish . . . She is no piker,” 
exclaimed the prosecutor with audacity. 

“Keep quiet, Brederodes,” observed the municipal 
judge, smiling, and at the same time he slapped him on 
the ribs, 

Mary, all upset, placed a cup before each guest. They 


186 CANAAN 


thanked her, smiling maliciously, looking her straight in 
the eyes. 

“Well! . . . even Dr. Souza Itapecuru . . . ” observed 
the lawyer, speaking to the judge, who sat with the 
monocle in his hand and a stupid smile over his face. 

“Oh! . ... I just wanted to see her...” 

And the poor girl, when she finished her task, went 
away with uncertain, halting steps. While the others 
joked, amused at the scene, Brederodes remained 
absorbed in thought. Through his turbid eyes passed 
voluptuous images and he felt an impulse to possess this 
woman. 

After lunch they rested, smoking; and when a great 
torpor was taking hold of the company, the lawyer woke 
them up, saying to the municipal judge: 

“Doctor, your excellency does not open the court yet?” 

Dr. Paul Maciel stretched himself yawning, as if he 
had been invited to some tiresome task. 

“All right! Let’s begin, Mr. Pantoja.” 

The “Maracaja” put on his spectacles, leaving them 
on his forehead while he arranged the table for business. 
The officer brought him a box, from which he extracted 
stationery and writing paraphernalia and a book of 
entries which he opened at a previously marked page. 
Seeking the best light, he sat down, and bending over the 
paper of folded margin began to write the terms of the 
suit. Paul Maciel sat at the head of the table, and with a 
fatigued and detached air started the routine business. 

“Well, is the declaration ready?” 

PLES Sit. 

“Then, open the court,” ordered the municipal judge 
to the officer. 


CANAAN 187 


The latter, with a bell in his hand, went to the door 
and began to ring. He walked in front of the house, 
shouting in a nasal voice: “Court of the honorable 
municipal judge . . . Court of the honorable municipal 
judge...” 

Under the scorching sun, in the great calmness of the 
world, these strident cries, swelling in volume in the 
universal silence, struck terror to the hearts of the 
colonists. 

Afterwards, the owner of the house was called. He 
entered the living room confused and frightened. His 
eyes could not retain anything but a vague impression of 
the scene. He could not recognize his own house trans- 
formed into a court of justice by these men who had 
taken possession of it and where he seemed to be but a 
stranger and a prisoner. They ordered him to come 
near, and asked him several questions to which he 
replied in a quiet tremulous voice. When he declared 
that his father had been dead four years, the lawyer 
grumbled : 

“Look at him... This hero is in possession of the 
estate, enjoying it as if it belonged to him, without giving 
any account to the courts or to the national treasury.” 

Paul Maciel, without showing the slightest interest in 
the proceedings, got up and said to the lawyer: 

“Mr. Pantoja, you go on taking down the depositions.” 

And he went into the other room, where his colleagues 
were lazily enjoying a quiet smoke, stretched on the beds. 
He took off his coat and lay down like the rest. 

In the living room, Pantoja continued to torture the 
colonist with questions, and from time to time, inter- 
rupted himself to threaten him: 


188 CANAAN 


“If you hide the least thing about the house, the land 
or the plantation, you'll get into trouble with the law... 
You people are mighty clever, but I am an old dog... I 
know the penalties for swindling the revenue... They 
are terrible penalties!’ Thus he mixed his threats with 
technical names and filled the heart of the German with 
terror. The proceeding went on with only these two 
characters. At the door, the officer dozed, sitting on a 
chair, opening now and then his eyes, red with sleep, 
only to shut them again. From the other room there 
was no longer the murmur of conversation. Only the 
measured and monotonous snoring of some sleeper filled 
the house, where everything had subsided into the great- 
est peacefulness. 

The lawyer took two hours to complete the inventory, 
using his own discretion, leaving blank the space for the ~ 
signatures of the judge and the two appraisers, who were 
after his own fashion and whom he assumed to have 
been present, thus following a customary fraud which 
always reaped great profits for him. 

When the interrogatory was finished, he dismissed the 
owner of the house who signed everything he was 
ordered to without being given the slightest explanation. 
Afterwards, Pantoja took off his spectacles and very 
quietly, on tip-toe, went to the room where the municipal 
judge was sleeping. ~ 

“All ready, doctor!” 

Maciel was scared by the voice of his understrapper, 
who, leaning over him, looked at him with his sinister, 
devilish eyes. 

“Ah! Itis you, eh? All finished?” 

“Everything. Where there is money everything goes 


CANAAN 189 


like silk. And there is plenty of it here... I have ready 
several summonses for the colonists of this neighborhood 
who have not made an inventory for a long time and are 
ch€wing up their inheritances without giving us any satis- 
faction. Come along, your honor, and sign these 
summonses, so that we may take the inventories here 
to-morrow. It does not amount to much, but...” 

“Now, now, Mr. Pantoja, it would be better to leave 
those poor wretches alone. It does not‘amount to much; 
it would not pay us.” 

“Oh! no, doctor; everything that falls into the net is 
fish, and when you know how to squeeze the orange, 
you'll be surprised to see all the juice that comes out of 
it. 

"Mc; Pantoja!... Mr. Pantoja!’ exclaimed the 
municipal judge, as if he wanted to rein in the ignoble 
appetite of the lawyer. But withal, he got up, quite 
resigned and willing to please, and in his shirt sleeves and 
slippers went into the court to sign the summonses. 

“Neves, get busy!” ordered the lawyer to the officer. 
And, reading the summonses, he shouted the names of 
the people who were to appear in court: “The widow 
Schultz . . . The widow Koelner... Otto Bergweg... 
They are all near. To-morrow at nine, here.” 

“All right, captain. I'll be back in a jiffy.” 

The officer put the summonses in his pocket and went 
out to saddle the donkey. 

“What awful laziness!” exclaimed the municipal 
judge, walking into the room where the others were 
sleeping. ‘Lying abed on such a beautiful day! Come 
on, gentlemen, let us go out for a walk!” 

And opening the windows, he let in a soft light, 


190 CANAAN ' 


deadened by the green leaves of the trees which sur- 
rounded the house. 

The other two opened their eyes. 

“What a fine nap!” said Maciel to the judge. And 
turning around to the prosecutor: “Hasn’t your honor 
had enough sleep?” 

“What is the use of a colonist if he is not going to 
support and entertain the law. Look here, Maciel, if I 
were in your place, if I were the judge of inventories, 
I would never leave the colonies.” 

“That’s all very fine, Dr. Brederodes, but we must also 
do penance, the same as the priests. This is our religion 
. . . But you can’t always do this with Dr. Maciel. You 
know how hard it was to get him to come along.” 

“T am sorry for them...” said the municipal judge. 

“For whom, doctor?” inquired the lawyer. 

“For these poor people, for these poor wretches.” 

“Tt is the law that is wretched. You ought to be sorry 
for your own self, for your family, for your country- 
men. Isn’t that right, judge?” 

Itapecuru, who was standing combing his hair, parted 
the few locks he had, turned round with great delibera- 
tion and, taking up his monocle, joined in the discussion. 

“You ask me? ... I was municipal judge at Bahia for 
twelve years. You should go there and find out what a 
name I made for myself. I was a terror for inventories. 
I didn’t miss one. I went from door to door in the name 
of the law. When I found out that someone had died, I 
took a note of it, and thirty days afterwards the summons 
made them shift pretty quick. Ah! we were all prosper- 
ous in the profession ... I got the engine going. These 
young fellows to-day give themselves such airs... 


CANAAN 19! 


Captain Pantoja, it is for lack of practical minds that the 
country is in such bad shape to-day. We belong to 
another school, we, the old ones.” 

* There was in his words a subtle pleasure in addressing 
familiarly his subaltern, who was the political chief of 
the place. 

“Excuse me, Dr. Itapecuru, please do not class me with 
the romantics,’ protested Brederodes with some 
vehemence. “The captain knows, I make the colonists 
move pretty fast.” 

Paul Maciel found himself excluded from their society ; 
he remained in a disdainful attitude, looking at his col- 
leagues, who were closely watched by the feline eyes of 
the lawyer. They all made fun of the municipal judge, 
and their laughter revealed their very souls, forming a 
grotesque company. One was the boisterous, coarse 
laughter of Itapecuru, another was the canine sharp- 
cutting laughter of Brederodes. The lawyer’s laughter 
had no energy for noise; its force was spent in spreading 
itself over the face in a broad smile. 

They all went into the yard and began to walk leisurely. 
The sun was declining and the afternoon was pleasant. 
The colonists, huddled together in the kitchen, dared not 
come out. The Law reigned absolutely in house and 
orange grove alike. In their shirt sleeves and slippers, the 
young magistrates enjoyed the beauty of the evening. 
The judge did not follow their bad example. He walked 
about in silk ulster and a gaudy tie, wearing a velvet 
cap. The lawyer had kept his alpaca coat, rather thread- 
bare in places. On his head he wore a sort of solideum 
which hid his baldness. 

They took a few turns, examining everything about the 


192 CANAAN 


house, and when they were under the orange trees loaded 
with yellow and red fruit, as the oranges were green or 
ripe, Paul Maciel remarked: 

“The orderliness and cleanliness of this colony is 
admirable. There is nothing lacking, everything pros- 
pers, everything is charming . . . What a difference 
when you travel through the lands cultivated by the 
Brazilians . . . disorder, carelessness and_ laziness, 
sadness and misery. And yet, they talk against the 
immigrants !” 

“Then, according to your theory,’ interrupted the 
prosecutor, “we should give everything to the Germans?” 

“That's it... .. ” commented the lawyer) iiiae 
follows logically from what Dr. Maciel says.” 

“Yes,” assented the latter, “as far as I am concerned, 
I would not mind if the country were given to the foreign- 
ers if they could appreciate it better than we do. Don’t 
you think the same, Dr. Itapecuru?” 

The judge assumed a solemn air: 

“Yes and no, as they say in the old scholasticks. There 
is no doubt that the Brazilians lack the analytical spirit. 
And when I say the Brazilians, I mean all of us. And 
what can you do without analysis? That has been the 
fate of Spain: she fell in the name of philosophy. She 
could not compete with an analytical people...” 

“How is that, doctor?” shouted the municipal judge. 
2 hea the: Unrted States. s.0547 

“A land of analysis, my friend. Listen, I am a fanatic 
as regards analysis. When I see an individual, I study 
all his habits. I don’t need to know his ideas. One 
circumstance is enough for me. For instance, tell me 
what the man eats, and I conclude, without fear of being 


CANAAN 193 


in error, what are the psychological feelings of the 
person I have under observation. Ah! when I get hold 
of aman, I classify him . . . and he is mine!” 

* “The doctor is a terror,” said Maciel, exchanging a 
knowing look with the prosecutor. 

“Ah! I have great confidence in nations tutored in 
that school. When I was in France, I made it a point 
to go to the Chambre and admire the young spirits who 
are there examining revenues, analyzing taxes . . . They 
speak of Lamartine! . . . A man, a countryman of ours 
to boot, told me once in Paris: ‘Listen to the orators of 
to-day . . . Dwarfs, they are! Remember Berryer, 
Lamartine. | When they spoke here—we were in the 
Palais Bourbon—their voices were heard throughout the 
world . . . But our modern orators are not heard even 
at the Place de la Concorde.’ ” 

“And what did you tell him?” 

“You needn’t think that I kept quiet,’ answered the 
magistrate with his stentorian laughter. “You'll see. 
Nothing of the kind, I answered, there is no inferiority 
there. In the old days, men spoke for the sake of 
talking. Only rhetoric, nothing of any moment. And 
their madness was so great that they paid for it with 
their tongues . . . Fools! Look now at the moderns, 
lads without beards, educated in the positivist science, 
full of the analytical spirit. Let us pay no attention to 
forms, let us look at the essence. That’s the important 
thing. Do not pay any attention to how they say a thing, 
but pay attention to what they say.” 

“And then?” 

“I squashed him, as you can readily imagine. Now, 
Brazil—to come back to our point—is dying through the 


194 CANAAN 


same spirit of rhetoric. It is our doom. To a certain 
extent, I agree with Dr. Maciel that we ought to give 
way to the stronger. I make way for the happier ones, 
as the poet says.” 

And Itapecuru suddenly repented of what he had said, 
because he saw in Pantoja’s eyes that the lawyer con- 
demned him for his ideas. He felt a cold shiver through 
his body and, stammering, attempted to modify his 
expressions, but the lawyer, full of venom, did not give 
him a chance. 

“T am astonished to hear such language from two 
magistrates. There is no patriotism left, there is nothing 
left. You, gentlemen, may wish to sell your native land 
to the foreigner, you may sell it, but as long as there is a 
mulatto left in this Brazil, which, after all, belongs to us, 
things will not run as smooth as my learned doctors 
imagine.” 

And the mulatto closed his fists, clenched his teeth, 
and a sinister smile spread over his face. 

“But, captain, listen,” pleaded the judge, in a voice 
mellifluous with cowardice, “do not doubt for a moment 
my patriotic feelings. Who applauded more than I did 
the Marshal’s answer? With bullets, yes, my dear 
captain, with bullets, when they come.” 

“And the time is not very far,” said the prosecutor. 
‘“‘We shall soon have occasion to show our patriotism.” 

“Yes, and we must unmask the traitors,” said Pantoja, 
in a menacing fashion. 


1That is what Marshal Floriano Peixoto said when foreign sailors 
threatened to land at Rio de Janeiro during the revolution ef 1893 
and some one asked how they should be received. 


CANAAN 195 


“And when will that famous moment come?” asked 
Maciel calmly and disdainfully. 

“When that emperor of Germany, whom your honor 
etimires so much,” answered Brederodes, “sends his fleet 
to blockade our ports.” 

“And what will your honors do to prevent him? Does 
your honor think, Brederodes, that with our dwarfish 
army and our insignificant navy we can face anyone?” 

Brederodes gave him a look and answered triumph- 
antly: 

“And the United States, my dear sir?” 

“That’s right, too,” said Itapecuru, laughing. ‘Would 
the mighty America look on with her arms crossed?” 

“T don’t know to what extent the United States would 
mix in this affair. . . But, after all, what would we gain 
by their intervention? We would only exchange 
masters. ~ That's all.” 

“And the Monroe doctrine? America for the 
Americans . ‘A 

By . of the North, as they themselves say,” con- 
cluded Maciel, jokingly. 

“Of North and South. Our fight will be against 
Europeans.” 

“No one can dominate a country if its people resist .. ”’ 
interposed the lawyer. “With one box of matches you 
can finish up a whole army and all the European canaille.” 

“How is that, captain?” asked the judge courteously, 
awaiting the answer in an admiring attitude. 

“How?” retorted the lawyer with fiendish pleasure. 
“Setting fire to the houses, to the cities, to the jungle. 
A gigantic bonfire which will scare the whole world!” 

“T know all about it! Poland and the Transvaal 


196 CANAAN 


3? 


promised a lot . observed the municipal judge 
ironically. 

“The Poles are aristocrats and, therefore, of no use. 
The Boers were a miserable bunch who were afraid of 
what they would lose,’ exclaimed Brederodes, beside 
himself. ‘“There is more love of money and of the mines 
there than love of honor. The Brazilians, that’s another 
story. We have nothing to lose, fortunately, and that 
heartens the people.” 

“Well said, doctor. You are one of us.” 

“Captain, don’t you ever doubt my sentiments,” said 
the judge earnestly. 

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. 

“You gentlemen speak of independence,” observed the 
municipal judge caustically, “but I don’t see it. Brazil 
is, and has always been, a colony. Our regime is not 
a free one. We are a protectorate.” 

“And who protects us?” interrupted Brederodes, 
gesticulating with his monocle. 

“Wait a minute, man. Listen. Tell me: where is our 
financial independence? What is the real money that 
dominates us? Where is our gold? What is the use of 
our miserable paper currency if it isn’t to buy English 
pounds? Where is our public property? What little we 
have is mortgaged. The customs revenues are in the 
hands of the English. We have no ships. We have no 
railroads, either; they are all in the hands of the foreign- 
ers. Is it, or is it not, a colonial regime disguised with 
the name of free nation .. . Listen. You don’t believe me. 
I would like to be able to preserve our moral and 
intellectual patrimony, our language, but rather than 
continue this poverty, this torpitude at which we have 


CANAAN 197 


arrived, it is better for one of Rothschilds’ book-keepers 
to manage our financial affairs and for a German colonel 
to set things in order.” 

“ “You are a cynic . . . ” shouted Brederodes, livid, 
his lips trembling. 

There was a brief silence. The lawyer was enjoying 
the dispute. Itapecuru feared a fight, but Paul Maciel 
smiled with superiority. 

“Call me what you wish; what you can’t do is to deny 
the evidence of facts. A colony we are and we shall be 
. .. he persisted coolly. 

Brederodes reddened, and in an uncontrollable rage, 
retorted daringly: 

“Tt will be a colony so long as there are yellow dogs 
like you!” 

“Now then, man, don’t get sassy,” said Maciel, quietly, 
and taking up the trend of his speech, he continued: 

“If in reality we are not within the sphere of action of 
a great nation, it is because we take advantage of the 
disputes between the great powers. The United States 
have cast their shadow on this continent, I know it, but 
some fine day, tired of preventing others from taking 
possession of our country, they will eat us up, as they did 
with Cuba.” 

“They say that Germany has her plans. They say... 
But my colleague knows that in such matters it is better 
not to say anything unless you feel perfectly sure of your 
remarks,’ pompously commented Dr. Itapecuru. And 
his egregious cowardice introduced a conciliatory element 
into the discussion. 

“T can assert, without fear of being contradicted, that 
we are coveted by the ambitious Germans. The very 


’ 


198 CANAAN 


kaiser pays out of his own pocket missionaries and 
professors in Rio Grande and Santa Catharina.” 

“And what is the government doing about it?” asked 
Brederodes, and he answered his own question: “They 
fold their arms, and look after the elections and politics. 
What we need, captain, is to sweep away those crooks 
who take hold of the government to enrich themselves, 
and then forget the poor people, while the foreigner is all 
the time making money out of our wretchedness.” 

“The elections are near . . . Why don’t you write a 
manifesto?’’ proposed the municipal judge. 

“This has nothing to do with manifestos or elections. 
These are things which interest only your party and your 
friends,” answered the lawyer, taking seriously what 
Maciel had said. 

“That’s what ruins us,” replied Brederodes, “that 
electoral mania. It is through the political parties that 
the country is going to wreck.” 

“And they even take advantage of the foreign vote,” 
added Paul Maciel. “Because those Germans will never 
be Brazilians, and they are the best voters Captain 
Pantoja has here.” 

The lawyer was quite embarrassed in his double 
capacity as chief of his party, in the neighborhood, and 
as patriot. 

“But those Germans aren’t doing anything. They are 
quiet, respectable people . . . A flock of sheep. . . you 
can take my word for it.” 

Brederodes burst out laughing, and said sarcastically : 

“There’s where the danger lies. The Germans are a 
bunch of crooks. They come to our country quietly, 
respectfully. We take advantage of them, of their 


CANAAN 199 


numbers, of their money. They keep developing, in the 
dark, and some fine day they’ll jump on our necks and 
conquer the country. Captain, quit talking, fire on the 
oreigner every time. Be a patriot always. Shoot!” 

Paul Maciel seemed to have lost interest in the discus- 
sion, and he slowly walked towards the house, pulling 
some leaves from the orange trees, nervously scenting 
their perfume. His companions followed him, deeply 
interested in their subject. 

“Tt is the eternal question in Brazilian life,’ thought 
Maciel. “To be or not to be a nation... A painful time 
in which men play with the destinies of a country... . 
Bad luck to the weak! . . . What can we do to resist the 
wolves? With the innate kindness of our race, with our 
natural weakness, with our careless inertia, how can we 
oppose those who are coming? . . . Everything will 
come to an end. Everything will be transformed . . 
Poor Brazil! . . . It was a miserable attempt at national- 
ity. Patience, that’s all . . . And what good will the 
United States do us? They will always be our boss. 
This continent is destined to be the prey of beasts . . . 


South America . . . Ridiculous . . . But, is there no 
salvation? Is there not a god or a force which will 
parry the blow that threatens us? . . . Ah, well. . 
Mea culpa, and that’s all . . . We are getting what we 
deserve . . . After all, perhaps it will be better . . 
The land will prosper . . . A better government. . 
more police . . . and that’s all . . . Is it worth it? Is 
it worth living, to have more police? And our 
language? our race . . . our people. . . degraded, if 


you like . . . mean, yes, weak, almost exhausted. . . 


200 CANAAN 


but lovable, beautiful, and beloved, in spite of all, 
because it is ours, ours . . . Oh! very much ours!” 

Walking thus, they reached the house, where dinner 
was waiting for them. They sat at the table, and 
the officer, who was back from delivering the sum- 
monses, helped to serve dinner. Mary came from her 
hiding place and moved about the room, continually 
molested by the men. The poor girl, all the same, seemed 
cold and indifferent to the bold, immoral phrases which 
the pillars of the law addressed to her. When the dinner 
was finished, the magistrates sat outside the house, and as 
the infinitude of stars come out into the night, they 
continued their conversation. 

The judge was very anxious to correct the impression 
as to his lack of patriotism which his previous remarks 
had made in the mind of Pantoja, fearing the latter’s 
political influence, and he returned to the subject. 

“My nationalism, captain, is very old. Ever since I 
attended the academy, I have been rabid in matters of 
patriotism. Ah! I have never yielded.” 

“But that was in the old days; it seems that to-day...” 
interrupted Maciel for fun. 

“To-day, with my age,” answered Itapecuru, stubborn- 
ly, putting on his monocle, ‘‘my patriotism has doubled. 
I never give in to the foreigner. Between ourselves, I 
am even a jacobin.” 

“But you had a good time in Europe, and certainly, if 
you could, you would always live there,” observed Maciel. 

“TI would never abandon my native land. I don’t deny 
that Europe has some very fine things. Those who, like 
your honor, feel ashamed of being Brazilians, should turn 
their eyes to the old world. It would do you good, believe 


CANAAN 201 


me. My patriotic feelings were weakened, I will admit, 
but when I saw how decadent Europe is, I felt proud of 
being a Brazilian and my patriotic ardor returned. It 
isn’t for nothing that my name is Itapecuru. It is the 
brand of patriotism which I have from the academy.” 

“How is that?” asked Brederodes. 

“When Goncalves Dias e Alencar gave the warning 
cry for Brazil, for the natives, we, the students, answered 


in our own way . . . My name was Manuel Anthony de 
Souza. That’s all. Souza smacked of Galician.t So, I 
added Itapecuru . . . Manuel Anthony de Souza Itape- 
curu . . . It was a general movement. Each one took 


a native name, hence the Tupinambas, the Itabaiaras, the 
Gurupis.” 

When, later on, the conversation languished, the judge 
asked his companions: 

“Gentlemen, how do you propose to kill time? Couldn’t 
we have a game of cards?” 

Paul Maciel was not afraid of time, and unlike his 
companions, he was happier when left alone with his 
thoughts. 

“Don’t count me in, doctor. I am tired and I am going 
to rest. Good night! I’ll wait for you in the room.” 

The others, when Maciel had gone, began to tear him 
to pieces. 

“It’s a pity,” said Itapecuru; “he takes no interest in 
anything.” 

“Well, he isn’t much of a loss,” added Brederodes. 
“He has nerve enough, though, but what has he done, 
aiter all?” 

“Yes, let him talk, so that we'll find out what he has 

1That ie to say, from Galicia, in Spain. 


ey 


202 CANAAN 


up his sleeve,” remarked the lawyer. “I can tell you one 
thing: he knows nothing about his business . . . If some 
fine day I write to the papers in the capital, we are going 
to have a good laugh. It will be pretty and clean.” 

“All he can do is to run down Brazil and curse all 
our things,” said Dr. Itapecuru, accentuating his words 
for the benefit of Lawyer Pantoja, who, in turn, added: 

“But he does not refuse the money at the end of the 
month. That doesn’t stink, although it is Brazilian.” 

“Maybe when this country is German, he will receive 
twice as much from his masters,” said the prosecutor. 

“Ts it true that he never lets go the German grammar?” 

“Yes, he is getting ready to govern us,’ answered 
Brederodes. 

They laughed heartily and got up to go and have their 
game. The judge always carried a pack of cards in his 
bag when he went on one of those judicial trips on which 
he had nothing to do, and which he undertook simply for 
company’s sake. 

The three played for some time, until the prosecutor, 
pretending to be tired, gave it up. 

“In that case, captain, I challenge you to a bisca,” the 
judge hastened to say, unwilling to stop playing, and 
fearing the ennui which always tormented him. 

“All right, doctor, get ready for a hammering,” 
answered Pantoja among the clouds of smoke from his 
cigar. 

Brederodes, in the yard, called the officer in a low 
voice: 

“Neves, Neves!” 

“Right here, sir!” 

The officer was lying dozing on the turf, and he got up 


CANAAN 203 


half dazed. The prosecutor gave him an order, which 
he proceeded to carry out. Brederodes, alone, walked 
yp and down the yard, agitated by lascivious desires. 
The officer soon returned. 
“Well?” inquired the prosecutor, when he saw him. 
“Sorry, doctor. Nothing doing.” 


“How’s that?” 

“The doe is as wild as could be. If you had only seen 
the look she gave me . . . She didn’t answer me, as if 
she had anything to lose . . . Didn’t your honor notice 


that she is well on?” 

Brederodes burst into a passion. The blood rushed to 
his head, he clenched his teeth, and his evil eyes shone in 
the night like those of a cat. 

“She’ll pay me for that. You'll see. There'll be hell 
to pay . . . Damn these Germans!” 

“Don’t let that worry you. . . I'll go again and try to 
fix the thing up.” And he disappeared towards the 
house to escape the fury of the prosecutor. 

The latter remained all alone, as if in a trance, planning 
revenge. Everything was quiet in the house. The two 
players, dead with sleep, had finally given up the cards 
and had retired to their rooms; the colonists gave no in- 
dication of life and the officer showed no sign of coming 

~back. Tired of waiting for him, his rage somewhat 
abated, Brederodes decided to go to his room. There, his 
companion—the lawyer—was snoring. He laid down on 
his bed quietly and watied until the night should grow 
older. His blood became impetuous with desire, and 
through his neurotic mind passed disturbing and sensuous 
visions. He got up stealthily, and, in the light of an oil 
lamp which burned in the living room, went into the hall- 


204. CANAAN 


way. When the light ceased, in a turn of the passage, he 
proceded in the dark, feeling the walls with his hands. 
When he came to a door, he stopped and listened, trying 
to find out by some sign, by some movement, if it were 
Mary’s room. Suddenly, he thought he had found it... 
He tried to open the door but it was locked. “Black- 
guard!” thought the prosecutor, bursting with rage. He 
felt a strong desire to knock down the door, but a faint 
realization of the falseness of the position in which he 
found himself, controlled him. 

“Perhaps this isn’t the one . . . This must be the room 
of the old couple.” 

And with this hope, he went on trying. There was 
another door opposite . . . He listened. Not a sound 

. . He took hold of the latch, lifted it, and at a gentle 
push, the door opened with a creak. Brederodes’ heart 
beat with joy. He heard somebody moving in the room 
and the scared voice of an old woman asked: 

“Ts that you, Mary?” 

Brederodes withdrew into the passage, leaving the door 
open. On tiptoe he went to his room, which he found 
without any trouble, guided, no doubt, by the instinct of 
self-preservation. 

Next morning, at nine o’clock, the officer tolled the 
bell, announcing to Kraus’ neighbors that court was open 
for the inventories. 

In the living room, the municipal judge and the lawyer 
occupied their places at the table. At the window, with 
their backs to it, the prosecutor and the judge were talk- 
ing to each other. Two women and a man, surrounded 
by children, stood against the wall, watching the proceed- 


CANAAN 205 


ings with fearful eyes. and expecting to be called at any 
moment. 

“Dr. Brederodes, your honor has to act, as curator of 
“orphans, in three inventories. There are some poor 
wretches who need your legal protection,” said the lawyer 
jokingly. 

The prosecutor smiled with satisfaction and sat down 
at the table. 

“Could I not have a share in this feast?” asked Dr. 
Itapecuru, with an idiotic smile. 

“Your honor knows that we only need your blessing 
when the business is done. Everybody will get a slice of 
the-cake > 2.” 

“All right! In that case, as I have nothing to do, I'll 
take a turn while you prepare the meal.” 

He put on his hat, looked majestically through his 
monocle at the summoned colonists, and went out of the 
room, while those who remained in it smiled at him. 

“Widow Schultz!” called Pantoja. 

After some hesitation, a peasant woman, tall and still 
young, came near. 

“How long has your husband been dead?” asked the 
lawyer, beginning the interrogatory in spite of the apathy 
of the municipal judge. 

“Two years.” 

“Always the same . . . Nobody complies with the 
law; they all inherit here without any ceremony . 
This has got to be stopped. I’m telling you.” 

Then he took down the deposition of the widow who, 
sad and frightened by the judicial machinery, answered 
everything submissively. The municipal judge and the 
prosecutor, having no interest in the court, got up and 


206 CANAAN 


went to the window. The woman had to stand the 
grossest insolences from Pantoja every now and then, 
and felt very much upset. 

“How many coffee plants have you in your settle- 
ment?” 

‘“Bive-hundred 003 77 

“Is that all? Come on, don’t tell me any lies . . . or 
we'll fix you up at Cachoeiro.” 

“But, sir, I may have more or less. I didn’t count 
them one by one . . . My late husband thought he had 
four hundred . . . I have planted about one hundred in 
the last two years.” 

“All right, Pll fix the number.” 

And without saying a word to the interested party who, 
after all, could not even read Portuguese, he wrote down: 

“One thousand five hundred coffee plants.” 

And Pantoja continued putting down the items of the 
inventory, and followed his old habit of increasing the 
value of the estate in order to swell his own earnings. 
After a while, he said to the woman: | 

“You may go now. In two weeks, you come to 
pay the costs. Three thousand reis. Do you hear?” 

The woman was going away, greatly relieved. 

“Hold on a minute! . . . My goodness! I didn’t tell 
you the most important thing,” observed the ‘“Maracaja’”’ 
in a jovial way. 

He wrote down several figures on a piece of paper, 
added them up, and finally said to himself: “One hundred 
and eighty thousand reis.” 

“That’s right. Listen: bring with you the money to 
pay the costs. Three thousand reis. Did you hear?” 


CANAAN 207 


“Three thousand reis!. . . Three thousand reis!... 
gee 2 Sits...” 

“Never mind ‘sir’, or anything else. We don’t deal 
out charity here . . . And you may consider yourself 
jolly happy that there has been no law suit. If you had 
had to hire a lawyer, you would have been in a mess... 
Three thousand reis. No lip, keep your mouth shut. If 
I find out that you go around talking about this business, 
you'll have to deal with me.” 

The woman looked at the two magistrates with plead- 
ing eyes. But they remained indifferent, continuing their 
conversation. Dumbfounded, and without anyone to 
take her side, the poor woman left the room, her head 
hanging down.  Pantoja called the colonist whose turn 
was next. After going through the same performance 
with him, he called a woman who was the last on the list. 

The woman, dressed in mourning, small, young, with a 
stupid, distracted air about her—the air of wretchedness 
itseli—came near him. A five year old daughter hung 
on to her dress, and she carried in her arms another one, 
whose golden head shone on the dark clothes of her 
mother. 

Paul Maciel, tired of standing up, went over to sit 
down at his place and evinced some interest in the group. 

“How long have you been a widow?” he asked. 

“Two months . . . ” answered the young woman. 

“How long have you been in Brazil?” 

“Hardly a year . . My husband, who already suffered 
with his chest, didn’t last very long. . . ” 

“You were making a start in life, weren’t you?” 

“We just had time to build the house and break up the 


208 CANAAN 


ground for the plantation . . . There was nothing 
planted.” 

“It’s very sad! And how do you manage to pull 
along?” he asked kindly. 

The woman remained pensive, without answering. 

“Naturally, you have some friend who takes your 
husband’s place,” said Pantoja to revenge himself for the 
kindness shown by the judge to the poor woman. For, 
accustomed as he was to do everything himself, he con- 
sidered the action of the judge as nothing short of a 
trespass on his prerogatives. 

Paul Maciel, in order to avoid discussion with his 
subordinate, who was feared by all of them, pretended 
not to hear. 

The woman finally said: 

“T am trying to sell my own house, and I am going to 
hire myself as a servant in some other settlement.” 

“Tt seems to me, Mr. Pantoja, that, after all, there is 
no need of making an inventory,’ observed Maciel 
“You'd better let her go in peace.” 

“Why should I?” asked the lawyer, trembling with 
passion. “Is your honor competent enough to pass judg- 


ment on this matter? That’s a fine one . . . What do 
you say to this, Dr. Brederodes? You are the party 
chiefly interested in this matter . ’» . This is a case of 
orphans.” 


BT 


“T don’t agree to letting the inventory go,” answered 
the prosecutor eagerly. “And if your honor does not 
wish to act ex-officio, I must insist upon the inventory.” 

Paul Maciel did not know what to do before the 
attitude assumed by the other two. His own inclination 
was to suspend, to throw into jail that insolent lawyer, 
his legal subordinate ; to dispense with the inventory, and 


CANAAN 209 


on top of that, give the poor woman some money, out of 
his own pocket, and send the poor wretch away with 
kind words. But in order to put his good intentions 
into execution, what an enormous store of energy, of 
nervous fluid he would have to use up! . . . Would it be 
worth while? His feeble forces betrayed him and his 
keen mind pictured a struggle with his two colleagues, 
with the lawyer who was a political boss in the locality, 
an inglorious fight in which he was bound to be the loser 
. . . Judges change, but lawyers remain. 

“All right, let us fix this up. We'll just make a list, 
instead of a formal inventory of the estate,’ he proposed 
in a tired voice. Pantoja looked at him triumphantly 
from top to toe. 

“That is merely a novelty to evade the law . . . here 
is the official form, and your honor can’t show me 
differently. An inventory is an inventory, doctor,” 
answered the lawyer, taking possession of the ground 
which his superior had given up. 

“Man,” said the prosecutor, “don’t be foolish, Mr. 
Maciel. What harm is there in making the inventory?” 

“What harm? . . . to force that poor woman to pay 
more costs . . . is that not enough?” 

“Costs are the oil for the machinery of the law. . . 
gleefully commented Pantoja. 

And so the inventory was made just the same as the 
others, with the same extortions and violence. At last, 
when the lawyer demanded from the woman two 
hundred reis, the poor wretch began to cry. 

_ “Let’s have no scenes . . . You would have the law 
work for nothing . . . That’s going too far.” 

“But I can’t raise all that money.” 

“Sell your house.” 


” 


210 CANAAN 


“Yes, my dear sir, I am going to sell the house to pay 
my husband’s debts, the expenses of the illness, and then 
I’ll work to pay the new debts.” 

“The law ee ... If you aren’t willing to pay us, you 
shall not sell the house, nor the land either. I’ll take 
the papers with me and we shall see.” 

“Captain Pantoja . . . ” began the municipal judge. 

“Mind your own business,” interrupted the lawyer in a 
rage. “Your honor is too young. You don’t under- 
stand this. You were born yesterday, but they can’t fool 
me q.)d) Dearsto. Shey alicery.7 

And turning to the woman: 

“Go away. A young woman can always get money .. ” 

He laughed with a dry laugh. Dazed, as if walking in 
her sleep, the woman left, trailing her children behind. 

After lunch, the horses were saddled and ready for the 
departure. The day was suffocating, with a powerful 
sun that silenced everything. The judges, accompanied 
by the officer and the master of the house, went to their 
horses. Pantoja came up to the group, and, pointing to 
the colonist, remarked to the prosecutor: 

“I haven’t had a chat with our friend yet.” 

And he slapped Franz Kraus on the shoulder. As the 
colonist was startled by this sign of intimacy, he added 
with an ironic courtesy: 

“Very much obliged for your hospitality, brother , . . 
but we have a little business to settle.” 

“What is it?” asked the frightened colonist. 


“Our costs, my friend. You have plenty . . . You’d 
better loosen up right away. I don’t like to give anyone 
credit . . . Fetch along . . . Four hundred thousand 
reis.” 


The man staggered, as if he were going to fall. A 


CANAAN 21f 


kind of vertigo seized him; his voice died in his throat 
with a spasm. The lawyer pushed him gently, saying in 
a joking way: 

“Go on, friend, don’t be scared. It might be worse 
Pee ecounsel, suits, fines...” 

Under the lawyer’s pressure, the colonist moved 
towards the house like an automaton. 

“Well done, captain. You are a man,” observed the 
judge flatteringly. 

“That’s nothing,’ answered the lawyer with pride. 

After a short delay, which made them impatient, old 
Kraus reappeared. His eyes were irritated and his 
cheeks red and swollen. He had been crying. 

Pantoja took the money and counted it. The colonist 
looked at him, downhearted and dumb. 

“All right! Everything’s settled now. Let’s be good 
friends. Come to my office for the papers at the end of 
the month.” 

He jumped on his horse. The cavalcade started. 

“T congratulate you,” said Itapecuru to Paul Maciel; 
“you'll reap a fine harvest.” 

The municipal judge looked at him with disgust, but 
did not answer. 

In the middle of the yard, with his hat in his 
hands and his head exposed to the sun, the colonist stood, 
watching with his dull eyes the Law as it disappeared in 
the road . . . And when it had vanished and everything 
had returned to.a profound quietude, he stood for a long 
time with his eyes fixed in the same direction . . . Sud- 
denly, in a fit of intense, cowardly rage, he murmured, 
looking fearfully around him: 

“Thieves !” 


CHAPTER VII. 


ARY continued her wretched existence in the 
M house of Franz Kraus. Despairing of Moritz’s 
return, closely watched by the avaricious 
and inquisitive eyes of the old couple, she lived 
like one demented, performing her household duties 
mechanically, unable to sleep night after night with 
the anxiety of trying to avoid the dishonor which 
indifferent and inexorable time was bringing closer 
and closer. At times a great desire seized her to flee, to 
run away, unknown, strong, free from the prejudices of 
others, and wait until time would bring her salvation and 
consolation for the future, from her own womb. At 
other times she sadly languished, prey to a great fear, to 
an immense and painful shame, and longed for death. 
But she was so frail and timid that she had not enough 
strength to make a resolution, and allowed herself to 
remain in the house, dwindling away in the same agony 
and despair... 

The old couple had no longer any doubt as to the poor 
girl’s condition, and as they watched her move about the 
house with slow steps, transformed by the bitterness of 
maternity, they felt a deep hatred against her, for they 
considered her an obstacle to the satisfaction of their 
ambitions. They saw that the marriage of their son 
with the heiress of the Schenker had been spoiled; it was 
too late, they said with discouragement. And now they, 

[212] 


CANAAN 213 


spent the days close together, whispering vengeance and 
planning how to get rid of Mary. But theirs were not 
inyentive heads, not even for evil. They remained 
irresolute, afraid of law suits, overpowered by the 
infinite growing fear which the visit of the Law had left 
in their hearts. And in this way, life in the house was a 
torture for everybody. They did not talk any longer; 
time did not pass unnoticed and they did not feel that 
indifference for existence which is its only charm. There 
were squabbles and insults every minute, and the old 
couple became more and more exacting with the poor 
girl, obsessed with the wicked idea that she would leave 
the house. They gave her little to eat and doubled her 
work, and it was with neurotic despair that they saw the 
girl standing her hardships stoically, without a movement 
of rebellion, going about like a somnabulist. 

Thus these wretches lived for a time. And one morn- 
ing, Mary, tired of working, her hands trembling and her 
body bathed in cold sweat, dropped a plate. It broke into 
a thousand pieces. Old Emma was furious, and in a fit 
of rage, started to insult the girl. Franz ran to the 
kitchen, and, his hatred getting the better of him, 
advanced towards Mary in a threatening attitude. The 
poor girl, scared at their shouts, began to walk backwards 
towards the door. It was then that Emma yelled: 

“Get out of here, wretch! . . . Away with you!... 
Saleen, GO! ....” 

Her husband, seized by the same rage, took up an axe 
and brandished it, threatening the girl with death. 

“Get out, you trash! . . . Get out, you slut!.. . 

Mary ran to her room for shelter. The old man caught 
up with her and with a violent push prevented her from 


” 


214 CANAAN 


reaching the door. The girl, livid, panting, stuck her 
back against the wall, protecting her womb with her 
hands. Franz stood in front of her, gnashing his teeth, 
foaming at the mouth. Emma took the girl by the arm, 
squeezing it violently. 

“Get out of here, pest!” she ordered. “Take your rags 
with you, slut . . . Get out of here! ... ” 

The girl obeyed mechanically. Though the rage of 
the old folks had been very sudden, it did not abate in 
the least, and the poor girl gathered up her clothes under 
a volley of vile oaths and curses. 

“Out of here! . . . ” Emma continued to yell in a 
passion. 

Mary went out into the yard, and urged on by the 
violent shouts, walked steadily, without hesitation, on 
towards the unknown. Her golden hair, loosened on her 
shoulders, reflected the sunlight through the green 
foliage . . . She never said a word nor uttered a com- 
plaint. 

She went along like a walking statue, and her big, 
clear eyes had the crystalline, dull lustre of a mirror... 

Behind her, Emma’s voice followed her like the barking 
of a dog. 

“Get out, wretch! . . Get out, curse of our homé!. . 
Get out, you damned wretch!” 

Mary walked along for some time, unconsciously, 
aimlessly. Under her great and deep emotion, her ideas 
became paralyzed as her dilated vision gathered and 
retained the small details of the landscape. A broken 
tree, a green coffee plantation, a ray of light, an animal 
that moved in the dark fastness of the jungle, a thread 
of water, everything was taken in by her sharpened 


CANAAN a1§ 


retina. And she walked along until the energy which 
sustained her nerves gave out, and she had a sensation of 
discouragement which hindered her steps and awoke her 
consciousness . . . She found herself expelled from the 
house which had been her home, her garden, her world! 
. . . To her memory came pictures of her childhood... 
Everything destroyed . . . Everything finished in a burst 
of rage, the meaning of which she could not well under- 
stand . . . She wanted to return to the house, without 
any ill feeling, with a smile which would dispel the 
frightful nightmare . . . To go back! to go back! But 
as she began to retrace her steps, she realized, in her 
heart-rending desolation, that she was raving when she 
imagined that it would be a simple matter to restore what 
had been destroyed for ever. Standing with her head 
hanging down on her bosom, her eyes fixed on her own 
body, she began to cry. 

A vague fear of not being able to find a home, a shelter 
in that desert, impelled her to continue silently on her 
way. She sought the most solitary places, for a feeling 
of shame drew her away from the houses she knew. 

She made up her mind to appeal to the pastor of 
Jequitiba. Since the morning of the mass, she had not 
seen him, but she had retained a favorable impression of 
his timid, countrified appearance. In her little soul, the 
soul of a simple rustic woman, Mary saw a ray of hope, 
which she followed confidently. When after two hours’ 
march the girl saw the church and the manse, a shiver of 
terror shook her body. But her hesitation lasted only an 
instant, for her absolute destitution made her unusually 
bold. 

She began to climb the hill. The landscape was clear, 


216 CANAAN 


and the two little buildings on the summit increased the 
sadness of the solitude. They looked like human habita- 
tions lost in the desert, they reminded her of isolation, 
sacrifice, abandon . . . As Mary ascended, she remem- 
bered the last feast of the colony, and at the remembrance, 
her mind filled the now empty and silent expanse of the 
hills and the valleys with people, with voices and ges- 
tures, with movement and life. She also recalled the 
few instants when she had seen Milkau, and carried away 
by her recollections, she thought of the music of the 
harmonium which had played while he was dozing... 

When she arrived at the summit, she saw the ground 
tilled and ready for the garden, whick was the new 
pastor’s passion. Through an open door came voices of 
children spelling monotonously, in a sing-song. It was 
the school taught by the pastor’s sister. Mary passed on, 
her head hanging down, and the stronger, strident 
infantile voices shook her with fear. She looked side- 
wise and saw a dark room, a woman in black away at the 
back, a black cross wrapped up in a sudarium on one of 
the walls, and fair heads of children turning curiously 
towards her. On she went, and before the closed door 
of the house, she trembled still more. From within, no 
sound came to break the voices of the children as they 
continued their monotonous, tireless spelling . . . Mary 
wanted to flee, but the fear of solitude, of the deserted 
hills, of the quietude of that house, took away her 
strength . . . Bathed in cold sweat, exhausted for a 
moment, she dropped her bundle of clothes on the ground 
and leant against the wall. Then, in a new fit of courage, 
with a nervous impulse, she rang the bell, which sounded 
alarmingly in the universal silence. 


CANAAN 217 


The pastor’s wife came to the door, scared by the 
noise, an expression of fear on her face which struck 
ferror in Mary’s heart. At last, after confused explana- 
tions, she went in to speak with the pastor, who in a 
short while came into the room where Mary was waiting 
for him. 

When Mary saw him, she stood petrified. The man, 
erect like a soldier and dressed like a gardener, had a 
surprisingly sweet voice which did not match his rustic 
appearance. 

“What do you wish, my daughter?” 

Mary did not answer. She fixed her eyes on the 
ground, blushing and trembling. Then, big tears rolled 
down her cheeks. 

“Come on, my girl, what has happened to you?. . 
asked the pastor’s wife gently. 

Tae. © 2. .want..,.. . lodgmgs’.”....:” answered 
the wretched girl, sobbing. 

The pastor stood confused, for the girl’s petition 
seemed very strange to him. 

‘“Haven’t you got a home, or a situation. . . ? We 
don’t require any more servants,” said he, speaking 
always in a sweet voice that came from his chest—as 
big as a bull’s—like the bleating of a sheep. 

Mary remained Gimb. The pastor’s wife went over 
to her and clapped her on the shoulder. 

“What happened to you? Did you lose your job?” 

At these marks of sympathy, Mary let her tears flow 
freely. The people of the house, wishing to find out a 
little more about the girl, tried to make her feel at ease 
and asked her more questions. Little by little the girl 
calmed down and with instinctive obedience answered 


” 


218 CANAAN 


thern amidst her tears. Outside, there was a joyous 
racket of childish voices that gradually died down as the 
children scattered down the side of the hill. It was the 
happy shout of freedom. . . 

The pastor’s sister, rustic and martial like himself, 
came into the room. Her brother explained the matter 
to her, and the woman, stern and silent, faithful to her 
habit of never asking questions, waited till everything 
was made clear to her. The pastor was afraid of her, 
and she had him under her thumb, frightened him with 
religious rules. In the house, the pastor’s wife was but 
a mere shadow of her husband, and the authority of her 
sister was never questioned. 

“Come on,” said the pastor, with a knowing look, ex- 
changing glances with his sister, “come on. You haven’t 
told me yet why you left the Kraus house ... How can I 
take you without knowing all about you?” 

“They did not want me any longer . . . I was thrown 
out.” 

“Oh! Oh! That’s a serious business! What did you 
do, my daughter, that they should treat you with such 
severity?” 

The teacher, who was observing the girl with inquisi- 
tive eyes, interrupted the interrogatory with a dry laugh. 
The pastor’s wife, fearing one of her sister-in-law’s 
outbursts, got up instinctively to leave the room. But 
curiosity was too much for her childish soul. 

“Away with this farce!” exclaimed the teacher in a 
mocking tone. “I know very well why your employers, 
who must be honest people, threw you out of their house 

. . You had some fun, I suppose? And why do you 
cry now? Are we to pay for your pleasures? Look 


| 


CANAAN 219 


here, woman, since you have started on that road, you 
shouldn’t have come here. This is a very respectable 

“house, this is the house of God. Go your own way... 
(o-on..-. <Get out of here... ” 

The pastor’s sister was burning with a great hatred, 
the greatest of hatreds, the hatred that comes from sexual 
feelings. Was she not an incomplete woman, an untilled 
field, a sealed tower, while the other, this mean wretch, 
was the consoler, the friend of man? 

“Oh! lady, what harm have I done you? .. . ” 

The pastor got up solemnly from his chair, and with 
that cursed, sweet voice of his, said to the girl: 

“In our house there is no room for pleasure; here we 
only love and worship God. Go, redeem yourself. 
Remember that all sins have their punishment. Yours 
is a horrible sin. The wrath of the Lord falls upon... ” 

Mary stopped crying. She thought they had all gone 
mad. The pastor’s wife looked at her with a pitying 
expression. But hers was a cold, inane, timid sort of 
pity. Mary returned her look and perhaps in her heart 
—for the heart understands everything—she felt the 
greatest pity for that shadow of a woman. The pastor 
pushed her gently towards the door, giving her a few 
paternal pats on the back. 

And as the girl gradually left the house, his voice 
assumed a gentle tender tone. 

“Go, my daughter . . . my poor daughter. What a 
pity it is! How I suffer at not being able to keep you 
in my house. . . If this place were not sacred. . . If 
God’s dwelling were not an awesome place! . . . Go, my 
daughter, go!” 

And when Mary found herself on top of the hill, 


220 CANAAN 


blinded by the sunlight, hallucinated, the pastor’s voice 
continued to sing in her ears: 

“Go, my daughter! Take care as you go down hill. 
Take care along the road! This place is so lonely... ” 

Then the door closed, and all that was human there 
disappeared in the vast silence. When Mary found 
herself alone, she began to run down the hill, impelled by 
fear and shame, and in her fever she imagined that the 
hills were closing upon her and that she was sinking 
among them. When she reached the cross roads, at the 
bottom of the hill, she started in the direction of Santa 
Theresa. In her innocent heart, in her confused mind, 
the terrible scenes of that day were mixed up as in a 
nightmare. It was the almost physical suffering of a 
rudimentary soul; and what urged her on was a vague 
fear of the night, of the solitude of the jungle. The sun 
was setting; the hillsides and peaceful valley, free at last 
from the fierce light of the day, rested in the dim twilight. 
Things assumed a different expression; the shadows 
stretched themselves lazily on the velvety, green grass, as 
if they felt sleepy; the breeze cooled the feverish earth; 
birds passed in long flights through the crystalline 
limpidity of the air... 

At the end of the valley Mary saw several settlements 
nestled in the foliage. Smoke issued from the chimneys, 
and at that hour, in every house of the Brazilian jungle, 
the families of the immigrants were gathered around the 
tables waiting for their suppers. . . . The poor girl sat 
discouraged at the side of the hill, her eyes riveted on 
the houses. Human voices reached her ears, and she 
listened to them as if they had been some sweet, soothing 
music . . . She felt very weak, not alone from her walk, 


CANAAN 221 


or the anguishing fatigue of her maternity, but with the 
emptiness of hunger. . . there . . . in the opulent land 
of Canaan . . . She felt like jumping on to the houses 
that lay at her feet, attracted by the human beings 
gathered there. And then, impelled by a violent desire 
to partake of the shelter, the warmth and the love of her 
fellow beings, Mary, forgetting her desperate situation, 
without the least feeling of shame and carried away by 
hunger, got up and ran towards the group of houses. 

When she reached the place, there was nobody outside. 
The dogs received her with a hostile chorus, but she went 
on through the yard, and her mad calmness made the 
animals entirely harmless. Some people came out of the 
first house to see the cause of the disturbance. Men and 
women came to the door, still chewing their food and 
annoyed at being disturbed. When the girl came up to 
them, she seemed to wake up; she felt afraid and 
did not know what to say. They assailed her with 
questions, and as the poor wretch, in her confusion, 
answered incoherently, some one said: 

“She must be crazy!” 

A panic spread suddenly, and they all thought the poor 
girl must be some dangerous wandering lunatic. The 
women ran into the houses; the men seized some sticks 
and advanced towards her, trying to frighten her away. 

“Away with you, you lunatic! away with you!” 

Mary retreated stupified, without knowing exactly 
what was happening. The dogs barked excitedly and 
the people from the other houses came out and joined 
their neighbors, forming a wild, deafening chorus. 

“Get away, lunatic! Lunatic!” 


222 CANAAN 


The girl ran breathlessly. The men, with their dogs, 
chased her furiously for a few moments, shouting: 

‘unatie? Lunatieles ioe" 

Mary reached the road, but still continued to run 
desperately in a superhuman effort to get away from the 
place. In her flight, she reached a small forest which 
was crossed by the road. The light of the evening was 
almost distinguished there. Mary stopped, afraid to enter 
into the darkness, and standing at the opening in 
the forest, shivering with fear, she looked into the trees 
until her eyes discovered the other door of light away in 
the distance. Through the covered way, enormous blue 
and brown butterflies flew haltingly and lazily . . . Mary 
remained at the edge of the forest. She had no courage 
to go in or to run away. A profound and inexplicable 
attraction for that dark and gloomy spot kept her as if 
she were hypnotized . . . The bundle of clothes fell from 
her tremulous hands. Exhausted, terrified at finding 
herself caught by night in such a solitude, abandoned by 
all, she let herself fall at the foot of a secular tree, and 
with dilated eyes and sharpened ears, watched and 
listened to the things around her . . . The power of her 
vision seemed to increase as the darkness mysteriously 
enveloped the forest like the vaporous, impalpable breath 
of the Earth . . . Her perturbed imagination made her 
feel that all nature was moving to suffocate her. The 
shadows increased. Colossal, black clouds rolled through 
the sky towards the abyss of the horizon . . . In the 
fields everything assumed monstrous forms in the feeble 
twilight . . . The mountains rose gigantic from the 
earth with awesome profiles . . . The roads stretched 
themselves through the fields, acquiring the mobility of 


CANAAN 223 


snakes . . . The isolated trees whined in the wind, as if 
smging some fantastic psalm for the nature that was 
dead . . . Frightsome nocturnal birds screeched their 
omens in funeral notes. Mary wanted to flee, but her 
tired limbs disobeyed the dictates of fear and let her 
lie there, the prey of anguishing despair. 

Glow worms began to light the forest with their divine 
flashes . . . Up above, the diminutive stars began to 
shine one after the other . . . The glow worms multiplied 
within the forest and silently, innumerable, they sprang 
from the trunks of the trees, as if they were giving forth 
flowers of light . . . The unfortunate girl, seized by a 
heavy torpor, was gradually overcome by sleep . 
Nature seemed to have recovered from her first fears on 
entering the darkness of night. What had been vague 
and indistinct in the scheme of things assumed a vivid 
clearness. The mountains resumed their perpetual 
immobility; the trees, scattered in the fields, lost their 
aspect of tortured phantasms . . . In the limpid air, 
everything returned to its impassible appearance. The 
glow worms were no longer flying, and myriad upon 
myriad of them covered the trunks of the trees, which 
seemed studded with diamonds and emeralds. It was a 
glorious and blinding illumination within the tropical 
forest, and the fires of the glow worms suffused every- 
thing with a green light over which shone flashes of 
yellow, orange and light blue. The forms of the trees 
seemed to be wrapped in a zodiacal phosphorescence. 
The glow worms studded the leaves, and here, there and 
everywhere shone emeralds, sapphires, rubies, amethysts 
and other precious stones which guard in their bosoms 
sparks of divine, eternal colors. Under the marvelous 


224 CANAAN 


light, a religious silence reigned over the world. The 
birds of ill omen no longer screeched of death; the wind, 
which disturbs and agitates things, was now dumb. . . 
Everywhere the soothing calmness of the light . . . Mary 
was surrounded by the glow worms that came to cover 
the tree at the foot of which she was sleeping. She was 
lying absolutely motionless and the glow worms circled 
her head with a golden halo. The transparent flesh of the 
sleeping girl was the only interruption in the greenish 
light of the forest, and she looked like an opal set in the 
green bosom of an emerald. Then the glow worms 
covered her entirely; her rags disappeared under an 
infinite profusion of precious stones, and the unfortunate 
girl, dressed with glow worms, sleeping ever so peace- 
fully, as if touched by a divine death, seemed ready for 
some celestial ceremony, for a betrothal with God. . . 
And the glow worms descended upon her like tears from 
the stars. On her golden head shone blue and violet 
flashes, and in a little while her hands, her arms, her neck, 
her hair, were covered by a mountain of pure fire. 
The glow worms came in ever increasing numbers, as if 
the whole forest had been pulverized into light, falling on 
Mary’s body and burying it in a magic tomb. Suddenly, 
with a start, the girl raised her head and opened her eyes, 
which were blinded by the light. The glow worms, 
startled by her movements, flew like flashes of many 
colored lightning . . . it seemed to Mary that in her sleep 
she had been carried away to the golden abyss of some 
star. She fell asleep again on the illumined surface of 
the arth. 

The silence of the night was broken by the first breezes, 
messengers of the dawn. The stars abandon the sky. 


CANAAN 225 


The glow worms, afraid of the new day, hide themselves 
in the secret of the forest and their last flashes, merging 
with the light of the dawn, form a blurred, colorless light. 
The birds begin to sing in the tree that shelters Mary, 
and from all the branches in the forest comes a musical 
note which fills the ears of the girl like the accents of an 
everlasting happiness. And the birds began to fly about, 
and everything was illumined with a different light, 
and noises started, and a heady perfume, concentrated 
during the night, permeated the awakening world. 
Abandoned by the glow worms, divested of her myster- 
ious jewels, Mary woke up gently, and her sense of 
innocence, of perfect union with the Universe, were 
suddenly brought to an end by the violent awakening of 
her conscience. Her tireless memory reminded her of 
her agony. Mary recognized herself. Conscious of the 
dangers she had run in that solitude, she got up with a 
jump and started to run. As she crossed the forest, in 
spite of the terror with which it had inspired her, there 
remained in her memory a glow which came from the 
wonderful sight she had perceived in that marvelous 
night. As soon as she reached the open road, she found 
the sun, and its powerful rays completely destroyed the 
illusion of her dream. 

The unfortunate girl walked for a couple of hours, 
passing vacant fields which increased her solitude, or 
valleys full of settlements which reminded her of her life 
of yesterday. With the dawn, work began in all the 
houses; shapes of women moved around the cows in the 
misty vapor of the pens; men were cutting up fire wood; 
children ran about the houses, and from all the chimneys 
issued smoke indicating that the people of the house, 


226 CANAAN 


oblivious to other people’s hunger, were going to have 
their needs attended to. Mary continued to climb the 
hills up to the heights of Santa Theresa. When she 
reached the summit she felt still more timid, fearing to 
disturb with a vagabond’s importunities the peaceful- 
ness of these busy, silent folks. Deeply feeling the 
shame of her humiliating condition, she directed her 
halting steps towards the inn. 

A few travelers were taking their breakfast at the inn, 
which was the only hostelry in the little town. Mary 
stood at the door in an attitude of begging. The land- 
lady, busy serving her guests, did not notice her, but her 
daughter, who was not so busy, came to the door to see 
what the girl wanted. Ina humble voice, Mary said that 
she was hungry. The young woman asked her to come 
in, but suddenly, as if repenting of what she had done, 
she went over to speak to her mother. The landlady 
came to have a look at the wanderer, and when Mary 
told her that she was looking for shelter and work, the 
old woman asked. 

“Have you any money?” 

Mary, who had not thought about it, stood embarrassed 
without giving any answer. The old woman repeated 
her question. At last the girl confessed that she had 
nothing. 

“Then, how do you expect me to give you something 
to eat?” 

Mary was terrified and looked at the old woman with a 
vacant stare. The landlady asked her: 

“What have you got in that bundle?” 

Mary was opening the bundle to show her her clothes, 
when two of the travelers shouted for the landlady, 


CANAAN 227 


cursing her at the same time. The old woman turned on 
her heels, saying : 

“All right. Go into the kitchen and I’ll speak to you 
in a little while.” 

The girl went along the corridor without looking at 
the dining-room. In the kitchen she found a repulsive 
mass moving like a snail around a rough fire place made 
of mud. It was the servant of the inn. Mary felt 
nauseated. Without daring to sit down, she remained 
standing, stupefied with hunger, waiting for the food they 
were going to give her. The travelers departed and the 
landlady went to the kitchen. After examining what 
Mary had in the bundle, she said to her: 

“You can have food and lodgings for two days for all 
these clothes.” 

And she took possession of the bundle while the girl 
looked on with complacent apathy. The landlady gave 
Mary a piece of bread and a mug of coffee. The poor 
wretch, starving as she was, ate her food ravenously. 

Mary spent the whole day wandering about the town, 
and wherever she went she aroused curiosity and gave an 
impression of sadness which frightened the carefree 
inhabitants of the place. Nobody spoke to her, and the 
poor girl, absorbed in her thoughts, wandered about like 
an animal struck with the pest. 

Sunk in misery, Mary was being quickly guided by 
another soul, more rudimentary, more primitive, which 
deadened all the manifestations of her former sensibility. 
And by noon time, she felt no shame whatever as she 
went from door to door asking for work. Nobody 
wanted her; they rejected her, pushed her away with an 
instinctive impulse of self-defense. Was she not the 


228 CANAAN 


repulsive phantom of poverty stalking through the peace- 
ful city, through the happy, comfortable homes of these 
respectable people? 

In the evening, when the sun was setting, the people 
sat at the doors of the houses, contented and carefree 
after their meal. Mary felt her solitude increase amidst 
the happiness of others. She walked along the main 
street of Santa Theresa and went to the very end of the 
town. But she had not the heart to abandon its depres- 
sing atmosphere. She went back. 

On that first night, when it was time to retire at the inn, 
the landlady showed her a mattress on the floor of an 
evil-smelling room. 

“This is your bed.” 

For a few moments she stood in the light of a miserable 
candle. The stench of the room sickened her, and in a 
swoon she fell on the rotten straw of the mattress. Ina 
short while a human form entered the room and sat down 
on another heap of straw, opposite that on which Mary 
lay. It was the old servant. She took off her blouse 
and stood in her chemise and petticoats, displaying her 
terrible thinness, like a witch. Her straggling hair fell 
on her back; her eyes shone with flashes of madness. 
Startled by the harpy, the poor girl lay petrified on the 
straw, and with unspeakable nausea she saw her com- 
panion, in the dim light, thrust her hand into the filthy 
straw and pull out a piece of meat which she began to 
devour. 

The two wretches did not speak to each other. But 
the eyes of the harpy lit up with hatred against the girl, 
for she looked upon her as an enemy, an intruder on the 
freedom of that filthy room, which to her was a temple 


CANAAN 229 


of liberty. Overcome by exhaustion, the old woman 
was not long in falling asleep on her straw. Mary 
listened to the heavings of that crooked body and to the 
beating of its big arteries, and an inexpressible fear 
prevented her from sleeping. The horrible room, the 
stench, the fear of the witch, everything conspired to 
keep her awake. And if she dozed, she could see 
the witch in a nightmare standing up, livid, satanic, 
stretching her skeleton hands to choke her. She awoke 
in terror, and, frozen by fear, moved her head towards 
the other, who continued to sleep. 

In the middle of the night, when the house was in 
absolute silence, rats began to appear in the room. They 
ran madly about, squealing and sniffing; they careered 
over the body of the old woman as if she had been a 
corpse, and ate in her mattress the remains of the meat. 
Mary thought she was going mad with terror. The rats 
finished the meat and continued their tireless search 
through the room, going and coming from one side to the 
other, incessantly, restlessly. The candle began to go 
out and in its death struggle the room was now in light, 
now in the dark, until the flame died and everything was 
plunged into blackness . . . Mary, always awake, listened 
to the terrifying noise of the rodents, and almost dead 
with fear, she felt passing over her head a_ horrible 
vampire flying through the gloom . 

The two days stipulated by the landlady passed without 
Mary being able to find work. Her humble requests 
were not listened to, and she became the laughing stock 
of the well-to-do, comfortable people of this corner of 
the world. The landlady told her to get out and Mary 
was panic-stricken at finding herself compelled again to 


230 CANAAN 


walk the roads without bread and without shelter. 
Bathed in. tears, she threw herself at the old woman’s 
feet begging to remain at the inn until she could find 
work. The landlady’s daughter, moved by ' Mary’s 
wretchedness, had the courage to interfere and the girl 
stayed at the inn as a servant, like the old woman. And 
so she lived at the inn for some days, miserable, wretched, 
but with the cursed desire for life which is our only 
support in adversity. 

One morning, Milkau, who was on his way to Porto 
do Cachoeiro for some provisions, sat breakfasting 

quietly at the inn of Santa Theresa when he saw Mary, 
“coming from the street, passing along the corridor. In 
spite of her wretched condition, Milkau recognized in 
her the girl with whom he had been talking at the dance 
at Jacob Muller’s, and whom he had seen, in a happy 
moment, in the chapel at Jequitiba. He thought for a 
while, trying to explain to himself this new meeting. 
After some hesitation, he called the landlady and asked 
her who was the woman he had just seen. 

“Ah!” exclaimed the landlady, “she is a vagabond 
whom I took in out of pity. I don’t know where she 
comes from; she appeared here without a cent and cried 
so much that J let her stay <7). °. 373 

“And is she your servant now?” 

“Servant? . . . That’s a good one! . . . What she 
does for me is nothing compared to what I do for her. 
The best of it is that she is going away soon; nobody 
wants her here. That would be a fine thing! In the 
condition she is in, without a cent to her name, she would 
demoralise my house . . . She’ll have to go to bed pretty 
soon tOO. as 4 


CANAAN 231 


_ The landlady’s language upset Milkau’s mind. He 
quickly ordered the landlady to call the girl, and the old 
woman went away to do as she was told. A few 
moments afterwards, the landlady came back pushing 
Mary in front of her. The poor girl, in her turn, 
recognized Milkau, and she felt an uncontrollable shame. 
When she saw Milkau she began to weep. Milkau stood 
up profoundly moved and tried to calm her. The land- 
lady, astonished at the scene, began to say: 

“That’s the limit! Come on, you poor boob. . . They 
are trying to give you work and you stand there like a 
stick. I suppose you don’t want to give up my 
Board! ...-” 

She stopped because some one was calling her from 
the kitchen, and away she went leaving Mary and Milkau 
alone. The kindly tone of Milkau’s voice gave Mary 
confidence to tell him her misfortune. At times she felt 
shamefully embarrassed, but Milkau carefully avoided 
the most delicate and intimate points. Mary, however, 
seized by unexpected ardor, bared to him her whole 
miserable existence. And when Milkau had heard the 
whole of her story, he stood thinking deeply. It was the 
first time in his new life that he had been face to face 
with Misfortune ... And at the moment of this meeting, 
ali his long months of happiness, of resurrection, 
vanished from his mind. Sorrow overpowered him with 
its ruthless, desolating force, and Milkau’s feelings 
galloped back to the past, sinking again into the gloomy 
period of suffering from which he thought he had freed 
himself for ever . . . Why should he not shut his ears, 
leaving behind the misery of others, and continue to en- 
joy his happiness? . . Had he not fled from human cruelty 


232 CANAAN 


abandoning the old, hateful society to begin life anew in 
the virginity of an immaculate world where peace must 
be inalterable? Why then did the spectre of misery 
pursue him even here? 

Milkau meditated in profound discouragement. Mary 
looked at him serenely, waiting for him to speak. <A 
long time passed in this sad silence. 

“All right,” said Milkau at last with radiant face, 
“there is a settlement where I can get you a job. It is 
the house of some friends of mine, at the Doce river... 
I am afraid, however, that you won’t be able to stand the 
journey. It is a long way and you seem so tired...” 

It was her salvation. Mary smiled with delight. 

“Tired? Oh! no . . . 1 am ready to walk. Youm 
see that I won’t get tired.” 

Then she added, thoughtfully : 

“But, dear sir, weren’t you going to Cachoeiro? Why 
do you give up your journey and return to Doce river? 
Is it just for my sake?” 

“Never mind. That’s nothing,’ answered Milkau 
without affectation. “As soon as I see you settled, I’ll 
go back to Cachoeiro. To-morrow, without fail.” 

UE Gy sags 

“Come on,” he said with gentle determination. 

They called the landlady, and Milkau told her that the 
girl was going to go with him. The woman put on a 
mocking expression. 

“Oh! . . . my dear sir. She isn’t my daughter; you 
can have her any time you want. She is a vagabond... 
I don’t care what happens to her... ” 

“Tell me one thing: how much should this poor girl 


CANAAN 233 


have paid you for her lodgings?” asked Milkau, without 
paying any attention to the old woman’s impertinence. 

She began to count on her fingers and asked for a 
ridiculous sum. Milkau made no objection and handed 
her the money. 

“There is the money you ask.” 

The old woman received the notes with great astonish- 
ment and joy. 

“Now,” added Milkau, “I want you to give back to this 
girl the clothes she gave you in payment.” 

The iandlady burst into a rage, as if she were being 
robbed. 

“That’s a fine one! Business is business! The clothes 
were a different matter!” 

Milkau explained quietly that she would have to choose 
between the clothes and the money, and the old woman, 
thus pressed, preferred to keep the money and restore 
the articles which were of no use to her, and she went 
away, snarling and grumbling, to look for them. Mary 
followed her. When she returned to the dining-room, 
smiling and happy, she had changed her clothes and tied 
her hair with blue ribbon. Milkau smiled at her reviving 
femininity. 

They went away. As they walked down the street, the 
landlady stood at the door shouting to the neighbors: 

“Look at them. Isn’t she lucky, the hussy .. . And 
that man, with the face of a saint! What shameless- 
MESS 6 

When they left Santa Theresa and took the road to 
Timbuhy, Milkau recalled his first journey, with Lentz, 
when he was ecstatically traversing the forest to free 
himself from Evil . . . His journey to-day was a struggle 


234 CANAAN 


against suffering, against the hatred of men . . . But 
discarding the misgiving of an unavoidable disillusion- 
ment, his mind took a more hopeful view and he felt sure 
that this painful incident which had interrupted his 
happiness would quickly pass away. To-morrow, he 
thought, Mary will be happy again. Her repentant lover 
will come to look for her, and the wounds inflicted by 
pain will soon be healed by the gentle breath of kindness. 

. . This thought made him happy, and forgetting the 
sadness and the miserable condition of his companion, 
he went along talking cheerfully to her. 

They went up and down the hills under the burning 
sun, and during the first few hours Mary walked quickly 
in spite of all. But later on, she began to feel tired, and 
it was only with great difficulty that she could continue. 
They sat down under the trees, on the roadside. From 
the fertile regions came droves of donkeys, heavily 
loaded, going in the direction of Porto do Cachoeiro; 
travelers on foot and on horse back passed by, but no 
one stopped to take a rest, as they did. In the afternoon 
Milkau became restless, perceiving that it would be 
impossible for them to reach Doce river before night. 
He asked Mary to walk on until they should reach a 
settlement where they could spend the night. They 
walked on for a little while and saw a house on top of a 
hill. Milkau proposed that they should walk along the 
path which led to it, for perhaps they might find lodgings 
there. Mary made an effort and began to climb very 
slowly. 

The settlement to which they directed their steps was 
a small European garden which broke the uniformity of 
the immigrants’ dwellings. As they approached it, they 


CANAAN 235 


“were more and more astonished by it. Down below there 

was a series of valleys of varying aspects. There were 
some low hills, enormous, dry, arid masses, black, bushy 
clumps of trees, precipices, fields, brooks, plantations, 
houses, everything in great profusion, with the wide, 
capricious lines of an extravagant landscape. The 
travelers contemplated the scenery with delight, and 
enjoyed the exquisite perfumes that came from the 
garden. When they arrived at the gate, Milkau clapped 
his hands. Some dogs came barking and running to the 
fence and an old man followed, trying to quiet them 
with his shouts. 

“Shut up, you rascals! That’s a fine way to receive 
visitors !”’ 

The dogs ran away grumbling, and the old man spoke 
to the travelers, stroking his white beard and displaying 
his fine teeth in a broad smile. Milkau explained what 
had brought them to the house. The old man very kindly 
opened the door and invited them in with a spontaneous 
hospitable gesture. They went into the garden, which 
was in full bloom. The eye could not perceive any 
details. The impression they had was of an infinite 
conglomeration of colors. As far as the eye could see 
that wonderful tapestry displayed its rare and heavenly 
colors. 

The old man showed them into the house and offered 
them something to eat. He served them at table and did 
everything he could for them. At the same time, he 
told them that he was a widower, that he had lived 
there alone for many years, that his daughters had 
married and that his sons lived in the neighborhood. He 
spent his time cultivating flowers; the coffee plantation 


236 CANAAN 


also took up some of his time, and from the window he 
pointed it out to them on a neighboring hill, as trim and 
neat as if it had been a garden. When the meal was 
finished the three of them went out into the garden. The 
colonist left them alone and went away to water his 
plants. Milkau stood admiring the skilled and youthful 
motions of the old man, then, followed by Mary he began 
to walk about the garden. She seemed never to have 
suffered at all; all traces of her misery had disappeared 
under her nomadic resignation. In a moment she forgot 
her agony. Now she was all admiration for Milkau, and 
with eyes fixed on him she humbly worshipped. Milkau 
found himself in this garden away from the exuberance 
of the tropics; the eternal greenness was interrupted, and 
the tragedy of the Brazilian nature had given way to the 
European peacefulness of flowers which had wandered 
to this place. The garden reminded Milkau of the 
country he had abandoned, and in his imagination he 
went back to old Germany. At this very hour, it was 
Springtime there . . . Everything was coming to life 
again from frozen death. He remembered the woods, 
the gardens, the houses, the people happy with the 
novelty of the kindly heat of the sun. And in the twilight, 
a shadow of nostalgia fell on Milkau’s mind, pained, 
saddened by his sudden meeting with sorrow . . . Mary 
felt a little tired and unconsciously leant her hand on 
Milkau’s shoulder. He felt the pressure of her hand like 
a fiery caress and the heat from her body reached his 
nerves, paralyzing them instantly. They walked about 
like two spectres, dumb, dreaming, their eyes lost in 
space. With the fall of day the perfume of the plants 
became stronger. As they passed along, absorbed in 


CANAAN 237 


*their own thoughts, the butterflies rose from the plants 
like winged flowers . . . They walked up to the end of 
the garden, to a dry, barren spot where a palm tree stood 
like an evil, beautiful woman, exhausting the fertility of 
the soil . . . They sat down on a stone. Their eyes, 
after wandering through the valley and the rocky slopes 
of the hills, looked up to the sky and watched the setting 
sun. It was a fantastic scene. Without rays, without 
reverberation, the immense globe displayed a gradation 
of colors as if some magician within amused himself by 
illuminating it. The whole world stood still to watch the 
spectacle . . . The great actor descended through the 
cloudless sky; the colors on its surface continued to 
change in an infinite mutation, until at last it reached the 
horizon and the earth was bathed in blood, and its 
thousand nerves quivered . . . Night had fallen. The 
colonist finished his work and came up to his guests, 
inviting them to go into the house. They sat at table 
and talked without much interest until the old man, dead 
sleepy, suggested that they go to bed. He showed Milkau 
two contiguous rooms where he had prepared their beds. 

The house was in deep silence and Milkau, without 
being able to sleep, listened to Mary’s soft and measured 
breathing which reached his ears like a strange music. It 
excited and kept him awake . 

He listened to her soft breathing and very gradually 
he felt a deep perturbation in his blood. Woman!.. . 
he thought. And the magic word awoke in him 
restrained and almost extinguished feelings of sensuality. 
Woman! And from the oblivion where they were buried 
rose lascivious and libidinous visions . . . Woman!... 
Crazed by these visions of voluptuousness, Milkau got 


238 CANAAN 


up shaking all over; his heart beat furiously, his throat 
was choking, his mouth was dry. He went to the half- 
opened door of Mary’s room. He trembled still more, 
and a sudden lauguor gave him an instant of conscious- 
ness and caused him great vexation . . . The strong man 
stood ashamed of the moment of madness, and opening 
the window he meditated while contemplating the divine 
night . . . He cursed himself and felt ashamed of 
himself ; he saw he was the toy of pleasure, and had lost 
faith ‘n redemption . . 

Mary slept on quietly; her breathing kept reaching 
Milkau’s ears and filled them with infinite pleasure. . . 
It was not the breathing of a sleeping person, it was the 
sighing of a lover under whose singing waves one feels 
the mystery of the instrument which charms you. . . 


The perfume of the garden upset everything . . . Milkau 
shook again, seized with voluptuousness . . . It was 
night, and love reigned supreme . . . At that hour came 
from the whole universe the echo of Love . . . He, 
alone, was dumb . . . And with his eyes, he tried to 
pierce the shadows that covered the world . . . Every- 


thing was illumined by the formidable power of his 
hallucination. And everything was a vision of love: 
mouths kissed each other feverishly, arms squeezed each 
other tightly, bodies mingled groaning with the frenzy 
of madness . . . The solitary man also loved . . . His 
blood, his young blood which had been frozen by illusion, 
thawed out in one instant, and warm and _ feverish, 
demanded a woman’s body . . . Milkau left the tempting 
night and entered Mary’s room. Her hair was loose and 
fell on her bare neck . . . Milkau felt the warmth from 
the feminine body, which pervaded the room, and thrust 


CANAAN 230 


fis hand into Mary’s soft, fair hair . . . And he stood 
dumb, shaking convulsively. Deranged by passion, he 
saw her hair shining, flowing over her body like a river 
of gold . . . For a few moments he stood near her body, 
unable te go any further, breathing so heavily that the 
girl woke up. With her eyes half opened, she asked: 

“Ts it time to start again?” 

The innocent voice struck Milkau like an icy blast. 
He withdrew his hand, and quickly coming to himself, 
he fled, murmuring at the same time: 

“No, no . . . Keep on sleeping. Lie down. It’s 
nothing...” 

He went back to the window. And for the changed 
man, the night was no longer the same as before; it ex- 
pressed no longer those acts of voluptuousness, those fits 
of lasciviousness. It was serene and kind like the face of 
a sister. He remained there a long time, humbled, 
confused, repentant, and the breeze carried away the 
plaints of his sex agony, and the dew that the dawn 
poured on his brow to soothe him, was mixed with his 
lonely tears. 

Early in the morning, when they left the house, the old 
man saw them to the garden door, smiling, with 
kindly malice, as people smile at sweethearts. Mary 
answered his good-bye without knowing what she was 
saying. Milkau felt an anguishing torture at his smile. 
then he raised his head and went haughtily away, as the 
conqueror of his own self. 


CHAPTER VL 


left its disturbing traces. An absolute melan- 

choly took hold of his mind, infinite, vague, 
weakening, and now his thoughts were constantly 
centered on discouragement . . . He could not ‘forget 
Mary’s misfortune. There is no suffering, ever so small, 
he thought, but it demands with the shouts of a thousand 
voices pity and reparation from the passers-by. No 
misfortune is small. All sorrow is immense. 

And in order to drive away Sadness, who drew near 
and extended her arms lovingly towards him, Milkau 
gave himself up to work with more ardor than ever. At 
the time, the settlement already presented a beautiful and 
flowery aspect. All the lot was cultivated, and the coffee 
plants, which had grown up very strong, covered like a 
cloak the old sore left by the clearing of the land. The 
half-burned stumps had disappeared ; the land looked like 
a green park, surrounded by the trees of the forest, 
scarcely interrupted by the plantation; the humble dwel- 
ling of the two immigrants was covered with creepers 
that burst out into flowers; and the little garden struck 
a note of perpetual gaiety in the tropics. 

Milkau was a farmer by instinct, and his faculties of 
observation and imagination were zealously employed in. 
the work of his own hands, which ennobled his human 
destiny. Lentz was the hunter. Confined to a narrow 

[240] 


? NHE passage of misery through Milkau’s new life 


ae CANAAN 441 


circle of activity, his mind, always retrograde, sought 
expansion in that primitive and savage form of civiliza- 
tion. He hunted, he fought with wild beasts, he scoured 
the jungle, helped by some neighbors of his own inclina- 
tions, and in a few months the Brazilian jungle held no 
secrets for him. Though living under the same roof, the 
two men were the exponents of two entirely different 
cultures. One offered to the world warlike exploits, 
butcheries, bloody sacrifices; the other, a simple farmer, 
offered it fruits from the earth, flowers from his garden 
. . . But far from there being any hatred, any fratricidal 
strife between these two different interpreters of life, 
there was an attraction, a close union which represented 
the fast alliance between men, ever growing and which 
some day will become universal and indestructible. 

Milkau worked on. And even when bending over his 
hoe, with his brow bathed in sweat and his nerves tired 
out, a sweet relaxation, a beneficial forgetfulness should 
have deadened his thoughts—even then the torture of 
pity, the continual presence of the misfortune of others, 
seemed a blot on his radiant vision. 

“Tt is not in work that our salvation lies, nor can we 
find in it a stimulant for our drooping hearts. What is 
the use of tiring ourselves and soaking the earth with our 
sweat, of covering the ground with the flowers created by 
our industrious hands if there, in front of us, at our sides 
lives Pain; if all that blood, those flowers, those fruits 
are not balsam for the strange wound? . . . What good 
were the color, the perfume, the taste of things to Mary’s 
hardships? How could her sufferings be cured? Did 
she not work night and day, like a convict? And did 
she derive any consolation from work? Oh no! there 


242 CANAAN 


is something else needed in this world. Something else, 
holier, sweeter, more powerful, more divine, more subtle, 
more comforting, more mysterious. . . LOVE! ... ” 
Thus thought Milkau, while his hoe, mechanically guided 
by his arms, continued to dig the earth. 

He went several times to the settlement where Mary 
was working, to give her some comfort with his words. 
She became more and more absorbed in her own sorrow, 
and not even to Milkau would she confide the secrets of 
her martyrdom. Milkau respected her reticence, and 
without insisting on baring her heart, he begged the 
people of the house to be charitable with the unfortunate 
girl, to watch over her and not abandon her in the coming 
crisis. The colonists promised everything, but in reality 
they were not kindly inclined towards the girl; they 
treated the wretch with disdain, even with hatred, as if 
she had been an intruder who was going to rob them of 
their peace and increase their troubles and the expenses 
of the house. Mary did not complain. To her old 
sufferings had been added the dislike and the hatred of 
her new masters, but, in spite of all, tortured by the fear 
of the painful moment which was drawing near, she 
thankfully received the rare crumbs of human condescen- 
sion which came her way. 

At this time Milkau’s life was being undermined by 
sadness. His companion also suffered, for outside of 
hunting, there was nothing in the settlement to excite 
his imagination. They worked during the day, silently 
absorbed in their own thoughts, and in the evening they 
wandered with slow uncertain steps to the neighboring 
houses. One of these walks led to a settlement which 
they had never seen before. There was an old man at 


- CANAAN 243 
the door who invited them to sit down and rest a little. 
While the people of the house were busy with their 
domestic duties and looking after the animals, the two 
friends talked to the old man. They spoke of Germany, 
and he willingly told them stories from his own life. He 
was a veteran of the Prussian army and his memory was 
full of incidents of the last big war. Lentz was greatly 
interested by the details of these stories and the old man 
seemed self-satisfied and full of vanity at entertaining 
the two young men. In his narrative, he described 
strange cities, armies marched by, battles raged, cavalry 
rushed with fury, the oblique rain of shrapnel turned 
into bloody mud the miserable human dust swept into 
heroic clouds by the hurricane of Conquest. The old 
man ended his stories by telling them that once, in a 
scouting expedition, he had fallen off his horse and that 
as he lay on the ground, the horse of another soldier 
passed at full gallop over his chest. He lay on the 
ground for a long time, vomiting blood, and finally, by 
a mere chance, he was picked up and saved. Then he 
was discharged, and came to Brazil where the mild 
climate kept him alive . . . With these recollections he 
mixed episodes of the invasion, pictures of foreign 
culture which he had barely seen but which had become 
engraved on his retina, causing a marvelous sensation, 
such as that felt by a barbarian in the midst of civiliza- 
tion . . . The terror of discipline still frightened him. 
He was nearly executed because one December night, 
while he was in the garrison of a town in France, he 
demanded a blanket from the people with whom he was 
billeted. And that extortion, which was beyond what 
the regulations permitted, had almost cost him his life. 


244 CANAAN 


Lentz then praised that immortal Force, which commands 
and is feared . . . And he smiled as he had not smiled 
for a long time. The veteran stood up, puffed up with 
pride, and, limping along, took his neighbors into the 
house to show them old portraits of kings, views of 
Prussia, pictures of the war. Everything was old there; 
furniture, pictures and recollections. Everything there 
carried one back to the past. 

On their way home Lentz said: 

“What a great consolation I felt visiting that old man’s 
house. It seemed for a moment that I had penetrated 
into Prussia’s mighty past.” 

“But one mustn’t love that past too much,” observed 
Milkau. 

“And why should I not love the glorious past of my 
people?” asked Lentz with a tone of emphatic superiority. 

“Why? Because,” answered Milkau, “what you love 
best in that way is precisely what is most humiliating 
and shameful. You love its destructive spirit, the devil 
which agitated it, its overbearing soul, slavery, war, 
blood, everything that separates and destroys . . . By 
and by our admiration for the past will dwindle until it 
disappears. Let us love the sacrifices made by human 
love, let us love science, let us love art . . . But the 
indiscriminating love for all that constitutes the past, for 
everything that was, is one of the most powerful agents 
of universal disruption. I hold that the study of anti- 
quity and the prestige of the humanities are so many 
poisons which atrophy the human soul of to-day and 
lend an ever growing charm to the mystery of Authority 

. Those who place themselves in the past, those 
whose souls are artificially antiquated are the true 


lt 


a CANAAN 245 


enemies of humankind, they are preachers of disruption, 
prophets of tedium and death.” 

“You know full well,” interrupted Lentz, “that I don’t 
love all the past, but I rejoice when I see in it a display 
of the strong human qualities of our country.” 

“And what benefit accrues from that force, from that 
greatness of our country?” 

“Oh! What I worship in it is precisely its imperial 
tendencies, its warlike fibre, its universal expansion, its 
military genius, its discipline, its tenacity...” 

“But what does that mean—our country?” 

“Our country . . . well, Milkau, don’t you know? It 
is Our race, a peculiar civilization which speaks to our 
very blood, it is ourselves, it is what gives us standing in 
the world, it is the product of ourselves multiplied to 
infinity. Nobody can flee its atmosphere . . . It is 
immortal !” 

“No, my dear Lentz, ‘our country’ is a transitory 
abstraction which is going to die . . . Nothing was ever 
founded upon it. Neither art, nor religion, nor science. 
Nothing, absolutely nothing has an elevated form so long 
as it is patriotic. Human genius is universal . . . A 
country is a secondary aspect of things, a political 
expression, it is disruption, war. A country is small, 
mean, it is a limitation to the love of men for each other, 
a restriction which we must break.” 

They went into the house, and for a great part of the 
night they kept on discussing those ideas. The follow- 
ing day, when Milkau was working all alone, he 
turned over in his head the discussion of the eve; he 
felt uneasy at the vivacity with which he had opposed his 
friend’s ideas. 


246 CANAAN 


“There is no doubt,” he thought ruefully, “that he is 
that way by nature. When two men stand face to face, 
an instinctive animosity rises between them, disturbing 
the sympathy they might feel for each other. It is the 
innate desire to subjugate, either by force, or by intellec- 
tual superiority or by the consciousness of one’s own 
perfection. I am that way myself; I try to bring Lentz 
into my own way of thinking, to dominate his ideas and 
his whole being. Oh! damnable pride! When will our 
humility be really free from the least traces of sham, 
bitter vanity, pride, overbearingness ?” 

Milkau, humbled by an unconscious force, recognized 
that he was inferior to his own ideas. Then he returned 
to the same thoughts. He understood that the exagger- 
ated love of country exhibited by his companion was 
perhaps a symptom of nostalgia, a longing for his native 
land. But was this not the painful result of a patriotic 
education? And from these thoughts he turned to himself, 
examining himself closely . . . He looked at the immense 
clear sky, shining like crystal, and felt like a stranger to 
himself . . . He admired the silhouette of the mountains, 
the blackness of the forest, the foliage of the trees . . . 
At his feet the earth was red, as if soaked in blood, and 
from the flowers rose a heavy, sickening perfume . 
The universe was at rest . . . And everything was 
strange to him. He and the World, he and everything 
else, a duality, an unavoidable distinction. ‘I am not in 
chee, thou art not in me . . . Yet, I love thee, but thou 
art not I.’” | 

Weakened by a deep sorrow and seized with sadness, 
Milkau felt that he also was an exile . . . There was not 
between him and all the things that surrounded hirn the 


_ CANAAN 247 
subtle intimacy which unites them to us for ever, that 
makes every thing part of our own being . . . And he 
perceived with great discouragement that the tropical 
country, the land of the sun, left him ecstatically wander- 
ing about, unable to understand things, and incapable of 
a perfect communion, or a definite identification with the 
danmdes =... 

“What am I, then? What worm, what miserable atom 
that cannot control itself, cannot love what it wishes to 
love, cannot identify itself with the other molecules 
of the world? What am I, that imperious, perverse laws 
rule me and overpower my blood?” 

Other neighbors came some time afterwards to settle 
at the Doce river, in the land that lies between the jungle 
and the waters. It was a small Magyar family consist- 
ing of the father, who was a widower, two daughters and 
a son, and with them came a young fellow of the same 
race, who was the sweetheart of one of the girls, and a 
gypsy. They lived, closely united by discouragement 
and fear, in a little house made of rough timbers, with a 
straw roof, scorched by the sun on hot days, shaken by 
the winds and flooded by rain on stormy days. There 
they followed the ritual of their native customs. The 
cowardly pressure of fear made them cling to their old 
traditions which had been handed down unchanged from 
father to son and had been preserved through a religious 
fear of their ancestors. The gypsy came with them, 
impelled by his wandering instinct. On the long voyage, 
the eternal wanderer of the plains found himself a 
prisoner in the steamer, that seemed to him like a 
devilish, movable cage. From the shore, the ocean 
irresistibly attracted him with its immensity. At sea, he 


248 CANAAN 


no longer felt any moral freedom. The infinite is a 
torturing mirage into which human essence disappears 
. . . Amidst the limitless waters, surrounded by danger, 
assailed by terror, the mind, losing its vital forces in a 
continuous dissociation, transforms that impulsive, 
illusory attraction into a persistent impression of 
astonishment and terror, and the strip of land which it 
left behind and towards which it runs incessantly, 
receives its regretful moans. Man can only be master of 
his individuality in a part of space whose horizon he 
can measure with his eyes, in what is limited and 
finite 2": 

At first they lived inactive, frightened at the perspective 
of the unknown, with their souls in suspense. The men 
scoured the neighborhood, hunted, wandered through the 
woods and visited the cities; the women stayed at home. 
When shadows began to fall, the gypsy lay down on the 
grass by the river side and with lazy eyes watched the 
dying sun. On Sundays the family gathered on the 
piazza. At one side sat the old man with his hat down 
to his eyes and his pipe in his mouth, stroking his long, 
yellow beard and the wrinkles of his face. The two 
girls and the lads, like real Magyars, decked themselves 
with the beautiful dresses of their native land, and gave 
themselves up to the great pleasure of her race, the 
dance. 

Sometimes, in their walks along the bank of the river, 
Milkau and Lentz sat under a tree and watched these 
festivals in the silence of the great solitude. The 
gypsy was the musician, sitting with his inseparable fiddle 
beside the old man. At a signal the couples got ready 
and the Polish marches began. It was lively music. 


CANAAN 249 


The measures were slow at first, but they soon gained 
speed and the dancers moved rapidly. They made quick 
turns, formed graceful semicircles, entwined their arms 
around each other and gathered in groups of classical 
statuary. At the end of each dance they breathed satis- 
faction, and on their faces was writ the pride they felt 
in their mastery of the art. But the gypsy did not give 
them any rest; his violin continued to play and they again 
felt their passion nervously awaking. 

With the fiddle under his chin, held by a tremulous 
hand, while the other worked the bow, the musician drew 
long, singing notes from his instrument. The men wore 
felt hats with pretty feathers, coats and knickerbockers of 
velvet, and long red sashes of silk round their waists. 
The women had bodices, open a little at the neck, 
which set off their full busts, and ornamented skirts of 
silk and velvet that covered their shapely forms. In 
the small space on the piazza, which almost hung over the 
great wild river, utterly alien to these melodies, the two 
races were united in a fraternity brought about by fate 
and art, the race that has an innate love of music and 
the race that has a passion for the dance. The artist 
dancers followed the madness of the violin in an almost 
imperceptible flight, onwards, always onwards, and with 
rare feeling improvised new figures. When they were at 
the height of pleasure, the younger of the girls, who had 
been nestled happily in her brother’s arms, her face lit by 
a smile, went over to look at the beloved musician with 
her big velvety eyes shining with joy ... When the music 
died down, the other sister, delighted and excited, her 
fair head leaning on her lover’s shoulder, panted with 


250 CANAAN 


excitement through her half open blood-red mouth 
moistened with dew. 

Felicissimo and his gang had gone to make new 
mensurations. After work, the surveyor used to come 
to Milkau’s house to talk with them, and with his vivacity 
and happiness amused them very much by telling stories 
of his adventurous life and experiences in the north, in 
that tragic Ceara in whose thirsty, implacable sands the 
souls of men are tempered by resignation, pain, energy 
and hope . . . When there was nothing very important 
to do, Joca joined Lentz, and the two went hunt- 
ing into the jungle. Living with these simple souls, 
Milkau managed to calm down the anxieties which 
troubled his mind. The spontaneity of the race, their 
courage and their kindness, brought him nearer to his 
dream 10s 

Nothing disturbed the quiet life of the immigrants and 
the laborers until one morning, when the surveyor and 
his assistants were sitting at the door of the big shed, 
they saw a black shadow passing majestically through 
the clear sky. 

“An urubu! .. .” exclaimed Felicissimo. 

“Ah! , . . there must be dead meat around here... 
observed Joca, watching the flight of the bird with his 
sharp eyes. 

The great solitary bird was floating in space like a 
black-sailed ship . . . A little while afterwards it soared 
over the horizon, and in a short time many others like it 
appeared in the clear sky. They kept flying in a circle 
which gradually narrowed down while they descended 
to a certain point in the forest. The laborers, amused 
and curious, watched the evolutions of the filthy urubus. 


” 


CANAAN 251 


“Look . . . over there . . . that’s just where the 
‘sorcerer’s’ house is,” said one of the men pointing in the 
direction of the house where dwelt the unsociable hunter. 


» Maybe one of his pups died . . . Devil take them 
all . . . ” grumbled the mulatto. 
“To hell with them . .. The pests! . . . ” added 


another one. 

“And their master, too... 

“T don’t think that any of his dogs died,” said Felicissi- 
mo. “If one had died, he would have buried it like a 
son.” 

“That’s right . . . and there would be no meat 
rotting.” 

“Perhaps the old man himself is dead,’”’ conjectured one 
of the laborers. 

“Man, that must be it. . . ’ said one of the men. “I 
haven’t seen him for days... ” 

“Neither have I,” said several others in chorus. 

“Let’s go and see, boss,” said Joca to the surveyor. 

They all got up and walked in the direction of the 
hunter’s dwelling. As they approached the house, they 
heard the barking and howling of dogs. When they 
sighted the house they saw the dogs barking and running 
like mad devils at the urubus that were trying to alight. 
The swarthy birds flew close to the ground, and when the 
dogs made for them, flew higher up and went to settle 
further away. 


39 


“Didn’t I tell you? . . . The dead meat is the old 
man .. . ” shouted one of the men, with a roar of 
laughter. 

“What a stink! . . . This devil has been rotting here 


” 


several days,”’ yelled another one. 


252 CANAAN 


They all stood still instinctively, as if holding a council. 

“Well, boss, what’s to be done?” asked Joca of the 
surveyor. 

“Come on, boys! . . . let’s bury the old man . . . God 
forgive his soul . . . We'll take care of his body,” said 
the surveyor with decision. 

Inspired by the pious impulse of Felicissimo, the men 
did not hesitate one moment and started towards the 
house. When the dogs saw them coming, the whole pack 
abandoned the uwrubus and made for the men like one 
single mass, furious, terrible, thunderous. The uwrubus 
took advantage of the diversion, and walking along the 
yard, invaded the house in an infernal dance, screeching 
weirdly and shaking their hairless, harpy heads. 

The men flew before the onset of the dogs and the 
defenders of the house stood at the yard gate howling, 
barking, showing their teeth and frothing at the mouth. 

“How are we going to face that gang?” asked one of 
the laborers when they were out of danger. 

“Joca, take some men with you and bring some of the 
iron rods. We'll teach those hounds a lesson,” said 
Felicissimo, enjoying his revenge beforehand. 

“Come on,” said Joca, and he went away with two 
others. 

The rest of the men stood throwing stones at the dogs 
who remained dauntless at the gate, barking and growl- 
ing ferociously. The wurubus, descending in large 
numbers from the air, continued their procession into the 
house. Even at that distance, the horrible and growing 
stench turned the men sick. 

“Oh!” exclaimed the surveyor impatiently, while he 


CANAAN 253 


waited in the road for Joca’s return. “Why is he taking 
such a long time?” And he kept on shouting: 

“Give them hell, boys! Get more stones! Take good 
aim rE 

The dogs howled, showing their sharp white teeth... 
The urubus continued to descend from the sky . . . At 
last Joca and the men came panting along the road, 
loaded with hoes, scythes and sticks. They armed them- 
selves, and Felicissimo ordered enthusiastically : 

“Onward, my boys!” 

The men threw themselves furiously and resolutely on 
the gate, which gave way under their weight, leaving the 
road clear. The dogs stood their ground and jumped at 
the men, biting them desperately. The invaders yelled 
with pain: 

“At them! At them!” 

Sticks and scythes fell on the animals. For a moment 
the invaders were severely bitten by the dogs and blood 
was running from their wounds. At times a dog left 
the fight, howling with pain when a well-directed and 
furious blow broke his leg. Again, the men, scattered 
and isolated, fled along the yard followed by the dogs... 
The men finally got together, forming with their weapons 
a circle of defence. 

“Don’t give up!” shouted Felicissimo. 

“Onward! Onward!” 

“Push on! Push on!” 

The dogs retreated before the energetic attack, and 
running away, they disappeared as if by magic. The 
men gave chase and entered the house brandishing their 
weapons . . . But sickened by the stench, they wavered, 
astonished at the horrible sight before their eyes. In 


254 CANAAN 


an inner court the wrubus were eating the corpse of the 
lonely immigrant as it lay on the ground. They had 
picked its eyes out, opening up large, bloody cavities in 
its head. Engrossed in their satanic feast, the urubus 
paid no attention to the men and continued to pick and 
eat with avidity. The dogs, forgetting the wrubus, turned 
on the men. 

“Get away! Get away!” thundered Joca, crazy with 
rage. 

Full of pity for the corpse, he went up to free it from 
the urubus. The dogs seized him by his legs and his 
clothes and stopped him . . . His friends ran to his help. 
At the noise of the struggle, the uwrubus abandoned their 
prey. Spreading their wings, they fanned the air, 
making the stench all the more intense, and, reluctant to 
leave the fcetid atmosphere, they flew heavily away 
to alight on the roof of the house. There they stood, 
funereal, horrible, witnessing the fight between men 
and dogs... When Joca managed to reach the 
corpse, the dogs redoubled their fury. They no longer 
were afraid of the irons and the blows, and attacked 
their enemies, who were taking possession of their dead 
master . . . It was a terrific struggle; men and dogs 
fought furiously, tearing each other to pieces, as if they 
were mad . . . The men were severely bitten and the 
hot blood ran down their naked, white legs . . . Howling, 
twisting themselves in a mad frenzy, the dogs threw 
themselves down and died on their master’s body. After 
a long fight, some of the men managed to get hold of the 
corpse and began to take it outside while their comrades 
defended them fearlessly. Some of the dogs rushed at 
them, but they also were killed . . . The remainder did 


CANAAN 255 


not lose courage and attacked the men with renewed 
vigor. One of them stuck his tusks in the thigh of one 
of the men with such fury that, although the poor fellow 
tried to drive the animal away with an iron rod, he did 
not manage it. The dog drove his teeth more and more 
into the flesh . . . Another man ran to the rescue and 
with a well aimed and violent blow of a scythe he severed 
the head of the dog; the head remained stuck to the 
thigh of the man, and from several arteries the blood 
flowed in jets... 

All the dogs had been killed. The yard was covered 
with dead bodies, torn to pieces, mutilated, with the 
members scattered in all directions. |The men, sore, 
tired and wounded, deposited the old man on the ground. 
The urubus flew to the yard, advancing towards the 
corpse which the men were about to abandon through 
sheer exhaustion. 

“Never!” shouted Felicissimo in a rage, “never! We 
must bury the old man first . . . Come on, you black- 
guards! Get busy with the hoes!” 

The surveyor took a hoe himself and began to dig the 
grave. Several of the men obeyed him grumbling. Others 
stood driving the wrubus away. 

“Deeper!” shouted the surveyor, “otherwise the urubus 
will dig him out again It is a shame to see a helpless 
creature of God, without anyone to look after him, eaten 
by those swine. . . ” 

The grave was soon ready and they buried the immi- 
grant hunter. Felicissimo knelt down and began to 
pray :—Our Father Who art in Heaven . . . Seized by 
strange and sudden pity, the rough men knelt down with 
their hats in their hands and began to pray, sad, oppressed 


256 CANAAN - 


by death which now revealed itself to them. Then they 
filled up the grave without saying a word. As the corpse 
disappeared under the earth, the urubus rose one by one 
into the secret heights. . . 

That same night, as the men of Felicissimo’s gang 
were sitting at the door of the big shed, they heard 
coming from the forest frightful grunts which broke the 
soothing silence. It was a herd of wild boars that was 
passing by. But Joca explained it thus: 

“There go the souls of the dogs, converted into 
catitus, to dig up the old devil and bring him back to 
Heese 

And in that way a new myth was born at Doce river. 
And even to-day, when in stormy nights the catitu grunts 
in the forest, the people repair to the houses fearfully, 
thinking of the enchanted dogs . . 


In the dawn of a foggy day, the landscape lost its clear, 
distinct lines. All things became confused; the moun- 
tains thrust their heads into the clouds; the tops of the 
trees were covered with vapor; the river, limitless, 
without horizon, like a great greyish plate, was lost in the 
low, gloomy sky. The general design was lost, the profile 
of things became blurred, and from the shadows the 
colors issued with an effort. Everywhere there were 
magnificent stains. Over the greenish fields, one of those 
stains, slightly blue, moved to and fro, rose and fell, and 
was gradually disappearing. The sun was not long in 
coming out, nature shook itself, the fog vanished and the 
clear sky extended with marvelous limpidity. The 
moving stain in the fields assumed the profile of a poor 
horse, looking on the green grass with his old, sad, tired 


CANAAN 257 


eyes. As he moved along, his stiff, black lips pulled at 
the grass, chewing it half-heartedly while all his attention 
as an experienced horse was riveted on the door of a hut 
where his masters, the new Magyar colonists, were 
watching him closely. The swift light fog drew him 
from his attitude of humble curiosity, caressing his 
shabby coat with its cold blast. He shivered with 
pleasure, and stretching out his snout and opening his 
lips, gratefully kissed the air. But the fog passed on 
carried by the wind towards the mountain, as if it had 
been a subtle veil which concealed some wander- 
ing goddess. A ray of sunlight shone before his eyes, 
lighting up his pupils. Such are the caresses of nature. 

One of the young Magyars walked up to the horse 
carrying a rope. The horse offered his head with a 
mixture of resignation and abandon. The lad placed 
the halter around his neck and took him to a post in front 
of the house and tied him to it. The colonists had 
decided to begin their planting that day and the old man 
gave the order to start for the clearing. The sons took 
some agricultural implements; the gypsy, shaking off his 
drowsiness, armed himself with a whip and went along 
with the others, who had untied the horse and had taken 
him with them. The girls, who had remained in the 
house full of instinctive terror, watched the group 
moving slowly away. 

They arrived at the ditch that surrounded the clearing 
and was several feet wide. It looked like a long wound 
on the back of the earth. In the burned jungle, several 
trunks still stook up naked and black. Milkau and Lentz, 
who happened to be taking a walk, passed near the 
clearing and saw the group formed by their neighbors. 


258 CANAAN 


“That’s good!” said Milkau. “They are going to start 
work. It disgusted me to see those people so apathetic 
and irresolute, idling away their time.” 

“But what the dickens are they doing dragging along 
that nag?” asked Lentz. 

The two friends walked on, then stood at a distance 
watching the movements of the group. 

The old colonist took the animal by the halter and led 
him to the ditch. The sons stood at his sides as solemn 
as if they had been at a religious ceremony. The father 
pulled the horse forward. The gypsy, with a whip in his 
hand, followed behind, and a furious lash, which rent the 
air like a sharp whistle, fell full on the back of the horse. 
The animal, pulling himself together, gave a jump. 
Several vigorous blows fell on his back. The horse 
stretched his neck forward, and lowered his body till his 
belly touched the ground, trying to avoid the blows. His 
legs were twisted with the excruciating pain of the 
punishment. On they dragged him ruthlessly, whipping 
him furiously. In that sacrifice they were performing a 
sacred rite; the new land was being united to the 
traditions of the old country. When their Tartar ances- 
tors descended from the Asiatic plateaus, and in 
European soil renounced their wandering life as shep- 
herds, to till the land and seek some satisfaction in life, 
they sacrificed to their gods the old companion of their 
peregrination through the steppes. And thus the inmola- 
tion of the horse became for their descendants a duty 
deep rooted in their souls. 

The group continued to move on. The old man, like 
a priest, conducted his victim, followed by the gypsy in 
whose face appeared the infernal and terrible expression 


CANAAN 259 


of his ancestors in their passion for blood. The others 
watched the ceremony in silence. The whip vibrated 
incessantly; its iron-tipped tails cut the animal’s back. 
The thin, cool air, penetrating through the wounds to the 
taw flesh caused him a sharp, excruciating pain. The 
sight and the smell of blood excited the gypsy more and 
more. He had become absolutely insensible to the 
torture he was inflicting on the horse and was seized by 
a murderous obsession. In his bloodthirsty passion, he 
never let the whip rest. The cuts became deeper; the 
blood flowed freely. In an agony of pain, the horse 
trailed himself along the ground, sprinkling the earth 
with his blood. Red drops spattered the lily-white head 
of the Magyar, who walked uncovered. His nostrils 
were dilated with pleasure. Heavy groans came from 
the animal’s chest, and in his dying eyes were expressed 
his humble protests, his timid appeals for pity. 

The whip cracked as the martyr marched on with his 
neck outstretched and his legs shaking, losing strength 
as the blood from the open veins flowed rapidly on to the 
ground. The gypsy, more terrible, more furious than 
ever, burst out into song, the war song of the old Tartars. 
The cruel whip marked the time of the curious tune. A 
sudden ardor seized the spectators of the sacrifice, and 
intoxicated by the music and the smell of blood, they 
began to sing in an infernal chorus. The poor animal fell 
heavily on one side. The inexorable whip made him get 
up again, and on the ground, as if it had been a veronica, 
the image of his body remained printed in blood. The 
song continued without interruption, ferocious, lugu- 
brious, as if it had been the echo of the song of Death. 
The horse took a few steps, stumbling on, and finally he 


260 CANAAN 


dropped down. He was dying slowly, panting, struggling 
for air. On his cloudy pupils were imprinted by a last 
ray of light the figures of his executioners. And that 
horrible picture, which his eyes had perceived, was an 
infinite torture which would follow him beyond death, 
and would preside at the rotting of his martyred body. 

The voices ceased. The men gathered around the 
carcass and began to pray like crazy ghosts. Puddles 
and threads of red covered the ditch. The layer of clay, 
smooth and slippery, like a plate of armor, made the 
earth impenetrable to the blood which evaporated in the 
sun. It was a refusal of the sacrifice, the rejection of 
the inmolation, breaking the cruel tradition of the ances- 
tors. The new Land was making its own contribution 
to the clear ideals of the new men... . 

“And what’s the use of it all?” asked Milkau, moved 
to tears. “Why that torture? Why that fecundation by 
blood when She, smiling and happy like a handsome 
young woman, would have given them her fruits, 
yielding to the sweet violence of love alone? . . . ” 


CHAPTER IX. 
AND the inevitable happened . . . In the middle 
of the coffee plantation, which she was weeding, 


Mary, who since the previous evening had been 
suffering a good deal, felt an acute pain in her 
womb, as if she had been violently stabbed. She fell 
heavily to the ground, her body shook and her pale face 
was distorted by a horrible grimace. The pain was sharp 
and short and the girl soon came to herself again. She 
felt a terrible fear, and her first impulse was to go into 
the house and await there the end of the crisis. However, 
she felt afraid of her masters, who night and day 
threatened to send her away, to save themselves the 
trouble of attending to her. She braced herself up and 
continued to work under the coffee plants, alone in the 
silence of the day. The work did not go on very well; 
her benumbed hands let the hoe fall down and her shaky, 
swollen legs could not support her. From time to time 
the same pain came back, as if tearing her womb. Mary 
tried to ease the horrible pain by pressing down her 
hands. In the intervals she stood up and tried to work, 
pulling the weeds around the plants, but again she had to 
drop down, bathed in cold sweat. At times she felt an 
impulse to scream, and against her will, she cried aloud, 
calling for help. When she calmed down again, she was 
scared by her unconscious shouts and felt terrified at the 
idea that some one might come to help her. She knew 


[261] 


262 CANAAN 


full well that any help from her masters would mean a 
greater torture for her, a greater vilification of her self, 
and probably it would mean being dismissed from that 
inhospitable home, which was a home none the less. The 
excruciating pain came oftener and oftener, and without 
any further hope, the poor wretch saw that the hour of 
maternity had arrived. 

Seized by fear, she abandoned her work, and getting as 
far away from the house as possible, left the plantation 
and went to the river side, which was absolutely deserted. 
There the ground was wild and unbroken and the only 
trees in it were a few rachitic cajueiros scattered around. 
Mary sat down under one of these trees, which at the 
time were in bloom. The strong perfume went to her 
head and the poor girl, exhausted, laid down on the 
ground. Between the pains Mary looked indifferently 
around her and saw the light reflected by the river 
. . - Nothing was stirring in that solitude except a herd 
of swine who were coming towards her grunting and 
digging up roots with their snouts . . . Mary groaned 
freely, twisting herself in her agony. Her cries were 
sharp and strident, but at all times they sounded hoarse, 
as if her hysterical throat were being choked. Her womb 
was being torn under the pressure. . . Then the 
pain stopped again and a cold sweat bathed her body, 
which lay stiff, inert until her tortures shook it. The 
swine were getting closer and closer to her, and the poor 
wretch, without realizing anything, followed their slow 
movements with her eyes . . 

Always the same pains, but now they were more 
frequent, more piercing, with a sobbing cry that ended 
inalong spasm. She suffered terribly, her body trembled 


CANAAN 203 


with convulsions, her teeth chattered nervously, her rosy 
hands were clenched as strongly as if they were vises. 
She was in the greatest disorder; her loosened hair fell 
eover her face in a tangle, her emaciated cheeks were 
tinged with blood; her dress was torn and it exposed her 
neck and her panting bosom. Suddenly she felt very 
faint, and it seemed to her that she was melting into a 
viscous, filthy fluid... 

This was death surely. Oh! even worse than death 
. . . New pains came, deep and unbearable that gave her 
a strong desire to press something against her. Mary 
threw her arms around the trunk of the cajueiro. Her 
wild eyes could not see anything clearly. To her ears 
came the rough grunting of the pigs who were stirring 
the dried leaves of the cajueciro, and coming towards her 
attracted by the fcetid smell . . . And she clung to the 
tree, tightening her snow-white arms around the trunk 
and digging her teeth in it convulsively, desperately . . . 
Around her the pigs stirred the dry leaves of the 
cajueiro, and some of them, more daring and greedy than 
the rest, even came forward and stuck their snouts into 
the damp ground . . . Mary tried to scare them away, 
but she had not strength enough even to utter a sharp 
cry; she only groaned, struggling in a mixture of pain 
and joy which stimulated her in a strange fashion. . . 
And the sinister pigs closed in upon her menacingly . . . 
Suddenly she let go the tree and fell exhausted . . . 
The cry of a baby mingled with the grunts of the swine 

. . The woman feebly attempted to take her son, but 
she was so weak that her arms refused to move. A 
sudden dizziness clouded her eyes and weakened her 
hearing, and feeling a voluptuous ease, she imagined that 


264 CANAAN 


she was floating in the air, away from the Earth, away 
from pain, and the grunting of the swine reached her as 
if it had been the far off lullaby of the murmuring sea 
. . . The thirsty swine grunted and snorted, fighting and 
pushing each other in the flowing blood. A new groan 
escaped from Mary’s bosom as she woke up with a start. 
The pigs ran away frightened, and Mary, in a semi-con- 
scious condition, sat up and looked in astonishment at the 
baby as it struggled, nearly choked. Then, when she felt a 
soothing emptiness in her womb, the pain stopped and 
Mary fell into another faint. The pigs, seeing her quiet, 
returned and fell upon the bloody membranes scattered 
on the ground. They devoured them ravenously, sucked 
the blood up, and carried away by their own voracity 
attacked the baby which, at the first bite, let out a cry 
and wakened its mother . . . When she opened her eyes, 
she got up with a jump and stood livid, stiff, hallucinated, 
watching her son carried away and torn to pieces by the 
pigs, as they ran along the field. . . 

The daughter of her masters, who was looking for 
Mary, arrived at that moment, and seeing the horrible 
scene, without trying to find out what had happened, ran 
back to the house frightened to death and shouting that 
the wretched servant, in a fit of wickedness, had 
destroyed her own son. 

Two days after, Mary lay in the jail of Cachoeiro. 

The German population was horrified at the news of 
the crime; and the pillars of the colony, the rich 
merchants, the pastors, the landowners, united as one 
man, demanded vengeance and that an example be 
made of the culprit. One morning, before the hearing, 
Dr. Itapecuru was looking over some documents with the 


CANAAN 265 


lawyer Pantoja, and Dr. Brederodes was reading some 
of the political journals from the capital, when Robert 
Schultz, dressed in his Sunday clothes, came in very 
solemnly. 

“Welcome to this house . . 
servility. 

The German saluted them with a kindly word for each, 
very suave and polite. They talked for a while about 
things in general, keeping up the conversation by fits and 
starts. Itapecuru suspected that Robert wanted to speak 
to him in private. What can it be? thought the judge. 
Something or other which he wants to ask, as usual. Or 
perhaps he wants me to settle my account. And Itape- 
curu, without knowing what they were talking about, 
smiled stupidly at the others. He dared not call the 
German aside, and made signs to the lawyer to remain. 
On his part the lawyer was full of curiosity at 
Robert’s visit and was in no hurry to go away. ‘No, it 
can’t be a question about the tribunals, otherwise he 
would not look so serious . . . With that air of import- 
ance . . . It must be the account.” And the magistrate 
remained stupefied. 

“My dear doctor,” said Robert at last, tired of the 
conversation, “what brings me here. . . ” 

Itapecuru breathed. No, it was not the bill. Other- 
wise, how would he . . . before people . . . No, no, it 
was not the bill. 

“Oh! my good friend, your wishes are orders for us. 
We are here to serve you. Isn’t that so, Dr. 
Brederodes?” 

The prosecutor muttered something and shrugged his 
shoulders. Then he added: 


”) 


said the judge with 


266 CANAAN 


“Tt all depends . . . If it has to do with the law. . . ” 

“My dear sir, do you think for a minute that I would 
come to the court except on business of the greatest 
importance?” asked the German, smiling and placing his 
hand on the shoulder of the prosecutor, who blushed at 
the impertinent familiarity. 

“Of course not,” said Pantoja. “We are old friends 
and you have never asked us anything out of reason.” 

“Nor me either, captain,’ said Itapecuru, puffing 
his cheeks with a grotesque smile, which displaced his 
monocle. 

“What’s the matter, anyway?” asked the inquisitive 
Maracaja. 

“My dear sirs, I come in the name of the colony, to ask 
that that wretch who murdered her son be punished. 
The crime is a horrible one, and the dignity of the 
Germans demands that the lesson be a severe one. . . ” 

“The colony knows,” said Itapecuru gravely, “that 
there is always justice here. We will look into every- 
thing with the utmost care, as we always do in the 
performance of our duty.” 

“What we are afraid of is that some of you gentlemen 
may feel sorry for the criminal and... ” 

“Oh! Impossible! Justice is blind,” said the judge, 
looking at the lawyer. ‘How is that affair getting along, 
captain?” 

“Dr. Brederodes has drawn up the indictment to-day 

. I have already made the necessary arrangements 
for the trial.” 

“Well, then, my dear doctor and colleague, there is no 
question as to the guilt of the accused?” asked Itapecuru 


CANAAN 267 


of the prosecutor . . . “Pray, what do you know about 
the matter?” 
_ Brederodes did not answer and continued to look at 
the journals. 

“There can be no possible doubt about it...” observed 
Robert. “There are people who saw the thing and they 
affirm that she threw the child to the pigs . . . Besides, 
tueve ate her antecedents... ” 

$A!” 

“Yes . . . A worthless wench . . . Her son would 
have been an encumbrance to her. You understand... 
We must not have any such bad examples here. Just 
you imagine if your honors let the thing go unpunished, 
if we said nothing about the matter . . . What would in 
the future become of morality among the families of the 
eplemists?.... .” 

“But how could we let the thing go?” asked Brederodes 
dryly. 

“Drawing up no indictment, making no arrests, not 
moving a step at all,” suggested the German. 

swoaurcettainly have nerve .-. . It’s just as I say, 
captain. Mr. Schultz and his countrymen seem to think 
that we are their servants.” And Brederodes thumped 
the table with his fist. 

‘wr. Brederodes . ... ” 

goctor .. .-” 

The others tried to stem the young prosecutor’s anger. 
However, he continued to vociferate, insulting the 
German, who tried to disarm the Brazilian’s wrath with 
a cowardly smile. 

“Yes, servants . . . Any damn fool can come here, 
because he has made some money, which he has stolen 


268 CANAAN 


from us, and demand in the name of the colony . . . 
What colony? . . . Demand that the law be carried out 
. . . That’s a fine one!” 

“But there is no objection . . . I believe my dear 
colleague, to the people... ” 

“People . . . nothing! Thieves, village bosses. . . 
Foreigners . . . The people!” 

“What they seek is only justice!” 

“Crooks! . . . Blackguards!. . . As they happened 
to catch one of their wenches red-handed, and they could 
do nothing else, they all start shouting for justice. . . 
That’s a fine thing!” 

“Our morality . . . ” the German ventured to say. 

“Morality . . . piffle! . . . Hypocrisy! They have 
the morality of highwaymen, who steal our lands and 
become rich!” 

“Then you seem to think that there has been no crime 
in this case?” asked Pantoja in order to change the 


subject. 

“No crime? Of course there is. Oh! .. . the 
wretch! I know her well,” answered Brederodes 
ironically. 


“Ts she the one?” asked the Maracaja sarcastically. 

“The very same one. She was very genteel and 
modest with me, but now we know what she really is. 
We'll settle our account now. I shall take the oppor- 
tunity to unmask the whole of this gang. This is not an 
isolated case. I am sure all these German women kill 
their children . . . We shall see. Am I not the prosecu- 
tor? And they have the nerve to come to me and 
demand things. They'll soon find out wholI am!... ” 

He could not shout any more for he was choking with 


CANAAN 269 


rage. He put on his hat, and shaking hands with Itape- 
curu, who wanted to detain him, he went away giving 
Robert a furious look. Robert’s fat face expressed the 
deepest chagrin. 

“He is a funny one!” said Pantoja when they were 
alone, desiring to dispel the bad impression made by the 
prosecutor’s outburst. 

“There he goes talking to himself and waving his arms. 
He is crazy! . . . He is too young,’ commented the 
lawyer, who was watching Brederodes from the window 
as he went along the street. 

The German did not say one word. That was not the 
proper place for him to vent his feelings. 

“The principal fault of the youth of to-day,” said Dr. 
Itapecuru, swinging his monocle from his finger, “is 
their absolute lack of respect for the conservative 
elements of the country. They are plain revolutionists. 
They think that revolution means progress. I also 
admire the rights of man. I am a liberal, but, as a 
magistrate, I know how to give to each one what rightly 
belongs to him. Suum cuique tribuere.” 

“That is the way of Justice,” interposed the lawyer, 
who was getting tired of the speech. 

“Yes, justice for all, old and young. How could 
society exist without order. It is the base of it. We 
must keep in mind the conservative element of 
the country. And right here in the colony, who consti- 
tute that salutary element?” 

Nobody answered his question. Itapecuru smiled at 
the ignorance of his dumb audience, and continued: 

“Who are that element? . . . The merchants, the 
landowners, the colonists, that is to say, the respectable 


270 CANAAN 


classes, those who have something to lose . . . And it is 
not by ill-treating them that you can have a perfect social 
organization. The Jacobins do not understand this 
admirable principle. Their only policy is to destroy, to 
knock things upside down. It is a great pity...” | 

Robert got up impatiently. The judge cut short his 
speech. 

“Well, doctor, can I take back word to the colony 
that there is absolutely no chance of the criminal escaping 
punishment ?” 

“The colony knows that according to my theories . 
began Dr. Itapecuru. 

But Robert did not wait for the rest. He made a 
great bow and went out. Pantoja followed him, walking 
like a cat. 

“Oh! Mr. Pantoja! What about our documents?” 
asked the distressed judge, who hated to be left without 
an audience. 

“Wait a minute! I’ll be back in a little while,” 
answered the lawyer without deigning to turn round, and 
he went away with Robert. 

“Quite a boy, that prosecutor!” Robert said to the 
Maracaja in the street. 

“A little bit crazy... 

“Crazy? He is a crook! I am going to write to 
Cachoeiro about him and raise hell with him.” 

“Now... now... ” stuttered the embarrassed 
lawyer. “The dickens of it is that those Jacobins are 
very powerful . . . They all protect each other . 
Just like a brotherhood . . . And the governor will 
probably pay attention to them... ” 


% 


39 


‘ 


CANAAN 271 


“Donnerwetter!” exclaimed the German, and then he 
proceeded in the language of the country: 

“Til be damned! Those gentry always want our help 
at election time. In this colony alone we have five 
hundred votes. And when it comes to a case of punish- 
ing a criminal who is insulting us, they get out of it! . .” 

“That’s true, that’s true enough. Listen, I shall write 
to the governor myself, secretly, asking at least that 


Brederodes be removed . . . It will be enough to have 
him removed . . . won't it?” 

“Let him go to hell!” 

“Yes... to hell,” repeated the other mechanically. 

“All right then, write . . . You are sure I can depend 
upon you?” 


“Oh, my dear sir! you can always depend upon me. 
What would I not do for the party? But it must be in 
secret . . . Just between ourselves . . . You know . 
those Jacobins . 

“And what about the trial?” interrupted Robert, 
changing the subject. ‘Look here . . . there is an 
intense feeling about this business. Really, it is a 

monstrous case. The colony could not afford to over- 

look it. What would people say? That the German 
women of Cachoeiro are a bunch of wretches who throw 
their babies to the pigs . 5 

“Indeed, a serious matter. I understand . . 

“As to the Jacobins you speak of . . . ” 

Peat politics...” 

“  . . they'll shout just as Mr. Brederodes shouted. 
Besides, our countrymen in the other colonies, in Itape- 
mirim, in Benevides, everywhere would look down upon 


272 CANAAN 


us. It is absolutely necessary that an example should 
be made to keep them quiet.” 

“Don’t worry about it any more. I give you my word 
that this thing will be carried out as you wish.” 

“What about the prosecutor?” 

“Didn’t you see him? With the idea of revenging 
himself on the colonist, and even through purely personal 
motives, he will prosecute to the bitter end. He is hard- 
headed . . . The judge. . . youknow him. . . heisa 
fool and he is ours... ” 

“Yes. He is mine, I may say,’ exclaimed the 
merchant boastfully, slapping his trouser’s pocket. 

Pantoja smiled. 

“As for the municipal judge . 
lawyer. 

“That’s right. He is a tricky gentleman, Dr. Maciel 


3) 


” 


continued the 


is. 

“Never mind him . . . He is an imbecile. You've 
only got to shout at him and he is all right. Then we 
have Itapecuru and the witnesses . . . And myself. . . 
and I am the boy that pulls the wires,” said the goat 
pompously. 

“Yes, that’s all right. Well, good-bye. Don’t forget 
that letter.” 

Pantoja and the German separated, going in opposite 
directions. | Suddenly the Maracaja turned round and 
shouted to the other: 

“T was forgetting... 

Then, coming close to the German, he lowered his 
voice. 

“I am in dire need of one hundred thousand reis. I 
must have them to-day .. . ” 


3” 


CANAAN 273 


“Come round to my office.” 

“Thanks very much. It isn’t for myself,’ he added 
h@rriedly. “It is for the party funds... ” 

The jail of Porto do Cachoeiro, which formed part of 
the old city, dating from the period of colonization, was 
the oldest and meanest building in the city. Its walls 
were black, and the rusty iron railings in the windows 
fitted but loosely in their sockets. A corridor divided 
the building into halves: one was the jail proper, and the 
other served as residence for the only two soldiers who 
kept guard on the prisoners. The jailor seldom appeared 
at the prison. They had given him his position as pay- 
ment for electoral services, of which he was master. The 
friendliest of camaraderies existed between prisoners 
and soldiers. The accused spent but a short time in the 
jail, just during the trial; after they were condemned 
they were sent to the prisons at the capital. But how 
the poor wretches suffered, almost without food, having 
to sleep on the wooden floor, without clothes, both sexes 
mingled like animals, exposed to cold and dampness and 
surrounded by the most unbelievable filth! 

Mary did not understand very well why she had been 
arrested. Her mind was asleep and only from time to 
time did she have glimpses of what had taken place. Her 
memory reproduced the horrible picture which her eyes 
had seen once in a terrible agony . . . And she grew 
excited and burst into screeches of horror, crying, 
begging for help until a beneficent stupor deprived her 
again of consciousness . . . At other intervals, when she 
felt more calm, she suffered terribly, feeling oppressed by 
the weight of the whole world, and though she was 
weak and cowardly and half dead, her greatest torture 


274 CANAAN 


was a desperate anxiety she felt for her son, who had 
seemed very beautiful through the veil of her vertigo... 

It was not very long before Milkau learned of Mary’s 
fate. His kindly instinct and the crystalline clarity of 
his cloudless soul made him understand that behind the 
indictment there was a drama, a web of the cowardice, 
vengeance and stupidity, so common among men. 
He felt ashamed of being a man, he felt ashamed of 
himself, he felt a deep scorn for all that life meant... 
The painful moment had arrived when his divine dream 
was being destroyed by wickedness. Everything which 
he had taken as meaning kindliness, forgetfulness and 
peace was but the lowest expression of all the vices of 
society 3.0 

In the afternoon of the same day, Milkau said to 
Lentz: 

“T am going to Cachoeiro for some time.” 

“And what takes you there?” asked his friend. 

“Sympathy at the unfortunate fate of that poor 
Pirige cee 

“And is that why you are leaving me? . . . You 
abandon your interests . . . our settlement?” 

“It is my duty, as it is also yours, to help that girl.” 

“T don’t understand you . . . ” replied Lentz dryly, 
and he waited for an explanation. 

“You don’t understand?” asked Milkau calmly. “Then 
you don’t see that that unfortunate girl is only a victim? 
And as she is a victim, I must hurry to her side.” 

“Who knows the truth?” 

“Even if she were not innocent, should her crime not 
be blamed on those who sent her away and drove her to 


desperation?” 


CANAAN 275 


“But you have nothing to do with that affair. . . it 
seems tome... ” replied Lentz. 

“Every man has to do with such business, as long as 
there is suffering in the Universe.” 

He went away alone. When he arrived at Cachoeiro 
the following day, the little city no longer had for him 
the charm of the first morning, when he had hailed it as 
the daughter of the sun and of the waters. His own 
sadness communicated itself to the landscape and its old 
attractiveness had mysteriously disappeared. Hemmed 
in between two lines of hills, the city seemed to him 
buried alive and condemned to an everlasting anguish. 
The infernal sun pitilessly punished the houses, and the 
enormous rocks, bare and barren, lay burning under its 
rays. The river, almost dry, breaking on the shapeless 
black stones, hummed its monotonous song. Along the 
muddy, unpaved streets rose, looking towards the river, 
heterogeneous houses, built in a hurry,, without art, as if 
they had been for people who had just arrived in the 
land. They were small, shapeless dwellings, painfully 
plain, showing in their outlines the profiles of the 
grotesque figures of monsters. And there, in the 
embryonic and aborted city, the coarse, rude people had 
the brutish air of those whose life is tortured by 
cupidity . . . Nature in this place seemed sinister, 
tragic, soul-rending; humanity seemed mean and 
ridiculous. 

Milkau’s only desire was to see Mary immediately. He 
hesitated for a while, afraid that he might be mistaken 
as to the girl’s innocence and that he might hear a 
lugubrious confession of her guilt. Agitated and 


276 CANAAN 


tremulous, he went to the jail, impelled by some confused 
and irresistible force. 

At the door a young mulatto dressed as a soldier stood 
guard, with his tunic unbuttoned and without any 
weapons. Milkau asked permission to speak to the 
prisoner. The man, without even getting up from the 
threshold where he was sitting, showed the corridor with 
a lazy hand and pointed out to him the cell where the 
prisoner was. Milkau entered full of misgivings. 

The window gratings did not allow full daylight to 
enter the cell, and in the dim light, Milkau saw Mary sit- 
ting on some boards which served her for a bed. Mary, 
frightened by the apparition, shook like a leaf, and 
neither of them could say a word for a few moments. 

She bent her head with shame, not daring to look at 
the man, then, very pale, she began to beg for mercy. 
Milkau felt full of pity for the miserable woman. What 
had been graceful, attractive, sweetly feminine in the 
woman, had entirely vanished, and there remained only 
a miserable body and a livid face where two eyes 
sparkled with the fire of madness. 

“You are suffering a terrible lot . . . aren’t you?” 
asked Milkau, laying his hands gently on her head. 

Mary felt through those hands and that voice a strange 
tenderness and _ kindliness which she had _ never 
experienced before. It was a subtle pleasure, and Mary, 
leaning over to receive his caress, wished that it would 
never end. And on the lips of the poor girl there 
appeared a smile, a humble and childish smile. 

Milkau did not wait for her to speak. He went on, 
carried away by a deep sympathy which did not give him 
time to think about his words and his gestures. 


CANAAN 277 


“You suffer. . . I know. . . But this will end soon 
. . - You will be so happy in this world . . . So happy!” 

“He sat down on the only chair there was in the cell 
and took between his hands Mary’s head. She let him 
caress her hair, twisted and tangled like a golden nest, 
and rested her forehead on his knees. Milkau could not 
see her face, but as he went on talking, he felt her sad 
fears ..'. 


“You must take care of yourself . . . Don’t be down- 
Hearted - =... You are very thin. . . and ill.. No... 
this will soon end . . . They will have pity on you. You 


”? 


shall leave here soon. And then you will be happy .. . 

Instinctively, he hesitated to accuse her. Why raise 
there the spectre of crime? She was gaining courage, 
and under the magic power of kindness her conscious- 
ness was coming back to her. 

“Look. I will never abandon you,” continued Milkau 
“and I will tell the others that you are innocent . 
Yes, they are to blame . . . They will forgive you, and 
they will confess their terrible crime. Because . 
Isn’t it true that they are more to blame? . . . ” 

Mary shivered. Her tears dried up immediately. 
Milkau continued to speak, carried away by a delicious 
anxiety to comfort. 

“Tt was in a moment of madness . . . It wasn’t you, | 
know . . . It was madness . . . Abandoned, lost, you 
did not wish—poor girl—to see your little son suffer as 
Co) sl 
The poor girl raised her head and staring at him 
fixedly, terrified, withdrew towards the end of the cell. 

“No...no... ” she murmured, panting. 


’ 


278 CANAAN 


“I am very sorry for you. . . Don’t be afraid. . . ” 
said Milkau trying to go near her. 

“No... Go away . . . go away,” she said, waving 
him away with her shaky hand. 

“Poor wretch! Who remains to you if you reject 
js arent eae 

“Go away . . . goaway . . . Oh, my God!” 

She clasped her hands frantically, then held her head 
tightly between them. 


“No . . . I'll stay here to save you,” Milkau said 
obstinately. “They will not pardon you. . . They will 
ask you to render an account of your son.” 

“My. son’ jsosyesi..3).3mly Son: ae 

“Whom you killed.” 

Af Cy 

“You,: 


In his wild anxiety to wrench a confession from her, 
to know the whole truth, Milkau spoke as if in an halluci- 
nation. 


MS -a iwc ty VOUs ih aSSaSSineee ctane se 
“No. ..Myson...No... . 1 dost rememper 
well. They took him away to eat him . . . Oh! My 


God! It is horrible!” 

Her sharp, cold eyes stared into Milkau’s, and he, 
afraid, confused, remained silent. It was she who was 
speaking now. 

“Assassin! My son! Oh! Why do you come to 
torture me in my misery? Oh! Leave me alone. . 
leave me alone... ” 

Milkau’s temporary wrath disappeared before the girl’s 
despair, and he humbly repented of his unconscious out- 
burst. 


CANAAN arg 


“Mary,” he began in a low voice, “I ask you for the 
sake of all you love: tell me that you were mad, that you 
were not yourself when you killed your son. Do tell me 
that.” 


“Leave me alone . . . leave me alone,” murmured the 
girl in a choking voice. 
“Wo... . I shall stay ... . I must stay. It is for your 


own good. You'll tell me everything.” 

Mary felt cowed by the energy with which he said 
these words. Her feeble spirit still attempted to struggle, 
but after a moment it gave in, vanquished by the superior 
mind. 

“IT want to know .. . I want to know,” insisted 
Milkau. 

The girl remained silent. 

“Why didn’t you send for me to help you when you 
found yourself abandoned and persecuted? Why? 
Didn’t you have any confidence in me?” 

“T was afraid ...I felt ashamed . . . ” she whispered 
in an almost imperceptible voice. 

“smame! for that. . .-” 

A sudden sadness seized him and he was silent and 
thoughtful for a moment. 

“Human nature! Shame... you said... And is 
that why you killed your little son, you wretch? . 
Your own little son . ss 

“T haven’t killed any one,’ 


? 


shouted the poor girl with 


an effort. 
“Don’t deny it . . . They accuse you... ” 
Boney are bad... ...” 
“Well, who killed him? . . . Comeon. . . answer 


me... ” asked Milkau full of anguish. 


280 CANAAN 


‘When it happened . . . I seemed to be very far away 
oy Sothought Twas ‘dymg arte 

“And then?” 

“T heard his little voice near me . . . He was crying! 
My God! Then there was grunting of pigs around us 

. . Then, they seized him . . . and they ran. . . 
eating. gh eating nese 


These fragments of phrases were enough to enlighten 
Milkau, and the horrible scene was exactly reproduced 
in his imagination, sharpened as it was by sympathy. 
Then he called her to him, lovingly and tenderly. 

“Come! Listen!” 

At his voice, full of kindness, the girl went over to 
him. She leant over his knees again, and there, in the 
filthy and gloomy prison, the two lugubriously went over 
the fatal happening. 


“You felt faint . . . You fell down senseless... ” 
“And the swine... ” 

“They came . . . The blood was running. . . ” 
“The. baby: 2) s > a he baby ee 


“Tt was crying at your feet.” 
“And the swine... ” 
“They carried it away... 


3) 


“My son!” 

“You woke up and saw, away in the distance, your 
little son covered with blood . . . torn to pieces in the 
mouths of the pigs . ad 

“My son!” 

“They asked you about him . . . They didn’t listen 
to you. They accused you, they arrested you... ” 

“And now... Iamaccursed. . . in jail. There is 


”? 


nothing left forme... nothing. . . 


CANAAN 281 


From that moment Milkau’s life was transformed 
egain. All the forces of his heart were devoted to 
Mary’s defence and salvation. The preliminaries 
dragged along, and the trial was long in starting. Milkau 
did not neglect the poor unfortunate. He visited her 
repeatedly, and as she was the only prisoner, the guards 
allowed him to come into the prison as often as he 
wanted. Mary began to feel happy in her misery. 
There were long intervals when, charmed by the voice 
and the kindness of her friend, she entirely forgot her 
misfortune. For his own part, visiting her daily, he 
was delighted to explore her primitive soul, which was so 
rich in emotions. In their conversations, he used to tell 
her stories of his travels in his wandering life as a world 
pilgrim. She listened to him attentively, deeply interest- 
ed in the deeds he had performed or wtinessed. Sometimes 
he spoke of the small cities of the Rhine, and then the 
legends turned up . . . They climbed the frozen Alps, 
and in their eyes shone the wonderful colors of the 
setting sun . . . Then came the big cities, tumultuous, 
pitiless, where there is hunger . . . Or they were at sea, 
gently pushed by the breezes or dragged along by the 
storms . . . There was also the Arctic sea, feebly 
lighted by the moon, with white ships magnified in the 
phosphorescence of the night, passing sinister by to 
smash against the icy barrier and sink, swallowed by the 
unfathomable waters . . . And she was like his shadow, 
always following him, always just behind . . . Sometimes 
he did not tell stories; he read her poems the sense of 
which she did not well understand, but at their music she 
trembled and cried copiously without knowing why... . 

In the city they began to take notice of Milkau. They 


282 CANAAN 


watched him through mere curiosity at first, then with a 
certain spite. The most unworthy conjectures were 
made about him, just as they would have been made in 
any other part of the world. They believed that Milkau 
was Mary’s lover and their collective hatred did not 
spare the man, probably her accomplice, who was not for- 
saking the woman although she had killed his own son. 
They all avoided him. Even at Robert Schultz’, and 
Robert was Milkau’s purveyor for everything needed at 
the settlement, he was treated with scorn, but Milkau, 
strong and superior in his love, resigned himself to being 
the enemy of all. And so, when he did not visit the 
prison, he walked alone through the fields that sur- 
rounded the city. 

In a few days Felicissimo arrived at Cachoeiro and 
stopped at the same hotel where Milkau was boarding. 
The surveyor, with his frank and kindly nature, did not 
share the prejudices of the citizens, and indifferent to 
them, he accompanied Milkau in his walks and observed 
with kindly interest his taciturnity. 

Coming back from one of these silent excursions, they 
went one morning into the city and saw an unusual 
commotion in the principal street. The people at the 
doors of the shops and in the street, the drovers and the 
colonists, follov-ed in great astonishment a group that 
moved along the street. It was Mary, accompanied by 
two soldiers, going to the trial. She was transfigured, 
and in the light of day, her paleness was cadaverous. 
Her eyes, fixed on the ground, were surrounded by two 
purple circles and her lips were bloodless and cold. . . 

Milkau, dumb, deeply moved, allowed the procession 
to pass. It seemed to him the image of Innocence being 


CANAAN 283 


conducted to her martyrdom . . . And Mary gradually 
disappeared in the distance . . . Milkau left Felicissimo 
and ran to the court. The surveyor felt a great pity for 
him and did not attempt to detain him. 

The first sitting was followed by several others, and 
Milkau attended them all. The witnesses testified 
unanimously against Mary. The web of falsehood was 
well woven, and unfortunately for Mary, she would not 
be able to tear it to pieces. Paul Maciel was the presid- 
ing judge and he conducted the trial intelligently and 
without prejudice. Milkau’s constant presence at the 
sitting had made him a familiar figure in the court. Very 
often, after a sitting, Maciel took pleasure in talking to 
him. On his part, Milkau found that the municipal 
judge had a splendid nature and he grew to like him very 
soon. It certainly was not the position of the magistrate 
that attracted him. When Milkau was with another 
man, he felt as if they were in a desert; his mind elimin- 
ated all the distinctions invented by society and he 
instinctively disregarded position, means, family and 
race. He just saw a fellow being whom he approached 
sympathetically, often with respect when by his clear 
intelligence, the magnitude of his misfortune or his moral 
superiority had inspired him with that feeling. The days 
of his wearisome life in Cachoeiro were passing monot- 
onously by, when one afternoon, as he was coming back 
from the jail, he met Felicissimo who was very much 
upset. 

“A terrible misfortune! A _ terrible misfortune!” 
shouted the surveyor excitedly. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Milkau. 

“A terrible misfortune! . . Little Fritz, Otto Bauer’s 


284 CANAAN 


son, has just been flattened out by a wine-barrel in his 
father's store. 0h" 

“How horrible . . . Poor little chap! And where is 
he?” 

“A little farther down,” said Felicissimo. “I’m just 
coming back from calling the doctor.” 

“Come on, let us go down.” 

When they arrived the house was all upset. The news 
had spread and a crowd of people had gathered there, 
invading with the familiarity of compassion the room 
where the child was dying, stretched upon a table. The 
mother, still young, leant over the child, looking at it 
with the profound, dumb sorrow of an animal. The 
father wandered about the room, trembling and awe- 
struck by the misfortune. All around there were sobs 
and cries. From time to time little Fritz moved his 
arms, struggling with death. Through his little red 
mouth came bubbles of blood. His blue eyes could not 
hold them. His head was intact, but his thorax had 
been crushed in. 

“Poor child!” exclaimed Milkau, feeling that death 
was at hand. 

Behind him a voice asked: 

“Couldn’t you do something to save him?” 

Milkau turned and saw Joca. He had the tragic air 
of a suffering satyr. The child was Joca’s pet when he 
was in the city. His parents allowed him to take the 
child for a walk, entrusted it to his almost maternal care, 
and the goat felt crazy with joy when he carried him in 
his arms from store to store or when, like a nurse, he 
taught him to take his first steps in the street. Miulkau 
felt deeply moved to see the face of that rude, primitive 


CANAAN 285 


man drenched with tears, and without the least hope he 
applied a few remedies. The doctor was not long in 
coming. He saw what had been done, and shaking his 
head, he murmured: 

“That’s all that could be done . . . There is nothing 
else left.” 

Little Fritz died in the horrible tortures of meningitis. 
During the night, sunk in deep meditations, they all 
silently watched the little corpse. Through the open 
window came the mournful moans of the waterfall. 
Gradually the oppressive silence and the exhaustion of 
their hearts overpowered them and they fell asleep. In 
the dim light of the funeral candles one could see the 
outiine of the body of a little old woman, the boy’s great- 
grandmother. She was a wizened, almost incorporeal 
person of vitreous transparence and all the life in her 
was concentrated in her small, clear eyes that shone with 
a sinister brilliance . . . Fritz’ mother also closed her 
eyes and sleep overcame her as soon as her respiration 
became more regular, and the red color of her swollen 
cheeks disappeared until she was absolutely pale . 
Then her face took on an expression of calm and 
happiness. She was a beautiful woman, with abundant 
black hair and an elegant profile. Everything about her 
expressed health and strength, and sorrow came to her 
as an importunate and strange guest. Those who were 
awake and watched her felt a deep sorrow at seeing this 
young and beautiful mother turned towards her dead son 
and smiling in her sleep . . . From one of the walls of 
the room a picture of Our Lady, lit by a lamp, presided 
over the wake. 

The Catholic family revealed itself. Milkau reflected 


286 CANAAN 


before the admirable symbol. He had the impression 
that all the cult was being devoted to the Virgin Mary. 
He remembered the cathedrals, the temples he had 
visited, and in all of them Her altars always attracted 
the hearts of the people more than the others, even those 
of Christ, which remained almost deserted. And why? 
Perhaps because of the greater sympathy between 
humankind and woman. And this universal tendency to 
deify, to exalt the goddesses, the women saints, did it not 
come from far, from very far, and was it not culminating 
now in the cult of Mary which was gradually extinguish- 
ing and absorbing all the other cults? . . . 

Milkau spent the whole night trying to comfort the 
family. He also was sad and downhearted, and when 
he looked at the little corpse he thought: 

“The death of a child is infinitely more sad than any 
other. We feel sad at the work that has not been 
finished, that has merely been attempted . . . that was 
going to be the completion of ourselves . . . Not to live 
. . . Those who die without having lived, those who are 
mere attempts at life, fill us with torturing pity. When 
a child dies we also die a little with it, for with it dies 
one of our illusions.” 

The funeral was the next day. All the people in the 
town, moved by the same spontaneous feeling, shared in 
the sorrow and made it universal. 

The morning was bright, clear and blue. A band of 
musicians, joyous and noisy as in the burials of angels, 
accompanied the cortége as it moved along lugubriously. 
The misfortune had shocked the whole city, and mourn- 
ing was general. The schools were closed and little 
children dressed in white lined the streets through which 


CANAAN "28% 


the funeral passed. The stores closed and people came 
from everywhere to join the cortége; even the enemics 
and competitors of Fritz’s father came bringing flowers, 
forgetting in the tragedy their hatreds. 

The Brazilian authorities also attended the funeral— 
except Brederodes, who would not forgive the foreigner 
even in his hour of misfortune. The funeral went along 
the principal streets of the town in a mixture of sorrow, 
noise and joyful music. Among those who carried the 
coffin was Joca, who looked ecstatically at his beloved 
child lying there as if he had of his own accord jumped 
into the red and gold little casket to start his journey to 
Pleaven ..._,. 

When it reached the river, the funeral turned towards 
the jail, which was close to the cemetery. The lively 
and joyous music was the first to reach the prison, and 
Mary, who did not know what it was about, felt her 
soul refreshed by the immortal sound. Attracted by the 
music, Mary went over to the grating and began to look 

. The funeral advanced, martial and solemn . 
Mary watched it. Her anxious eyes looking through the 
iron bars, rested on the corpse . . . Even in death there 
passed the victory, the triumph of force and happiness 

. She could hear now, amid the harmony of sound, 
other voices, coarse, cavernous . . . They came from 
afar, from the unknown, but so persistent, so terrible 
that they drowned the voices of the instruments . 
And Mary, her sensibility excited by madness, heard and 
saw the funeral of her little son, carried away amidst the 
macabre music of the grunting swine . . . With face 
distorted, hair dishevelled and mouth shut tight by a 


288 CANAAN 


horrible contortion, she sat stiff, clutching the iron bars 

. . Of the mob, the only one who looked at her was 
Milkau, who felt an infinite pity for her. The others, 
frightened or hateful, turned their eyes away from the 
figure of the poor wretch . . . The colony passed along 
united both in love and hatred. 


CHAPTER X. 


place, Paul Maciel began to take Milkau to lis 

house almost daily, and there, in the course of 
long and noble conversations, worthy of men, their 
friendship became more and more intimate. Maciel 
was a stranger in his own country and the moments 
he spent with Milkau were almost sacred for him, for 
they had the fine flavor of freedom. Never, since doubt 
had corrupted his soul, had he felt so happy and so 
bright. 

“T don’t see any way of avoiding a fatal ending to this 
trial,’ said the magistrate, answering a question by 
Milkau, after they had shut themselves up in his office. 

“How is that? Are you perhaps convinced that Mary 
Perutz is guilty?” asked Milkau with misgiving. 

“My friend, I am not convinced of anything at all 
. . . Lam merely telling you that after the depositions of 
the witnesses and the proof presented, she must be found 
guilty and condemned . ‘ 

“But the witnesses have all been tampered with,” 
interrupted Milkau. ‘They have been instructed to say 
certain things.” 

“You don’t have to tell me that. That’s always the way 
with us. There isn’t one single trial where justice can 
be rendered. I am telling you this and I am a judge 
myself. What have my sentences got to do with the 


[289] 


\ FTER several sittings of the trial had taken 


ago CANAAN 


truth of the facts?.. . . Nothing 3) 2 Amd dogs 
think that I would not like to mend matters. But it is 
useless; when I receive all the documents connected with 
the trial, there is in them such a tissue of lies that I am 
forced to capitulate. It is most discouraging, isn’t it?” 

Ttas horrible!) 4s 

“A country without justice is not a country to live in; 
it is nothing but a conglomeration of barbarians . 
affirmed Maciel, following his bent of talking in genera’ 
terms, 

“In Brazil there is no law,” he continued, “and no 
one can feel safe. The trial is conducted in such a way 
that the accused has no chance. Listen, if a man tries to 
seize another man’s property, he finds in our judicial 
system, in the way of conducting trials, all possible 
help to carry out his nefarious intention. And if that 
man be a magnate, nobody can bother him. No; not 
even I.’ 

“Justice is but an illusion the world over,” said Milkau. 

“But in Brazil conditions are much worse than else- 
where, because it is not a case of rare eclipses of justice.” 

Milkau listened thoughtfully to the magistrate, who 
went on impelled by a desire to confess the faults of 
his country. 

“This that we call a nation is nothing, I say. We did 
have here once a semblance of liberty and justice, but 
to-day all that has ended. This poor Brazil is but a 
corpse which is rapidly decomposing . . . The urubts 
are ‘coining | 27).65" 

“Where from?’ 

“From everywhere; from Europe, from the United 
states...) abt-isyasconquesti).cn4, 


~~ 


CANAAN agi 


“IT don’t believe that,” asserted Milkau. 

“They will come. How could we live on in our present 
condition? Where is the moral foundation that shall 
support us abroad when here, at home, we are struggling 
in the greatest disorder and despair? What is happening 
to the country is that it is undergoing a character crisis. 
It hasn’t one single fundamental virtue . . .” 

“That is the character of the race,” explained Milkau. 

“Yes, my friend. Here the race is not distinguished 
by any prominent conservative virtue; there does not 
exist a common moral fund. I may add that there are 
no two Brazilians alike, and that, therefore, it would be 
futile to attempt to form an idea of the collective virtues 
and defects by judging merely by one of us. Which 
is our social virtue? Not even courage, the most 
rudimentary and instinctive of them all, is with us 
cultivated sanely and constantly, in a superior way. In 
this country, bravery is nothing more than a nervous 
impulse. Look at our wars! What cowardice is written 
in their history! . . . There was a time when our piety 
and our kindness were loudly proclaimed. Collectively, 
as a nation, we are bad, hysterically, uselessly bad... !” 

He fell silent as if oppressed by his sad recollections. 
Milkau, feeling sorry for the tortures of his Brazilian 
soul, looked sympathetically at Maciel. 

“See what happens to patriotism here,” continued 
Maciel after a brief interval. “In Brazil the great mass 
of the people has no such feeling. Here there is a 
cosmopolitanism which is not the expression of a com- 
prehensive and generous philosophy but is merely a 
symptom of moral inertia, an indication of the untimely 
loss of a feeling—patriotism—which would very well har- 


292 CANAAN 


monize with the backward state of our culture. You must 
notice that our patriots are all men of hatred and of 
blood, that is to say, they are savages.” 

“There is no doubt,” assented Milkau, deeply interested 
in Maciel’s frank analysis, “that there is a vast 
disparity between the different strata of the population. 
This lack of homogeneity is probably the cause of that 
instability . es 

The judge reflected awhile, then leaning over the table, 
he looked at Milkau and spoke to him in a more decisive 
and vibrant tone. 

“You are right. The Brazilian people, as a whole, 
offer an aspect at once of decrepitude and childishness. 
The decadence of our people presents a deplorable 
mixture of the savagery of the new-born races with the 
degeneracy of the races that are becoming exhausted. 
There is general confusion. The currents of immorality 
flow through our people without meeting obstacles 
in any of our institutions. Such a nation as ours is 
ready to receive the worst evil that can befall in the 
world: arbitrary and despotic governments. If society 
is a creation of suggestion, what can you expect of the 
feelings, the ideals of the uncultured masses when their 
imagination is being bewildered by the spectacle of the 
most brazen degradation in the governing classes? What 
reaction will not be caused in dull intellects by the scorn 
of those leaders for an ideal, for superior things, and 
their love for position and graft? And it isn’t the 
government only. It is all of them: the subservient 
judiciary, ready to plunder private property, the public 
servants, the military, the clergy, all of them are sliding 
down a dangerous incline. . . ” 





CANAAN 293 


He stood up nervously, opened the window and, 
absorbed in his own thoughts, looked at the waterfall. 
The soft light of the evening filled the room. Milkau, 
without moving from his seat, began to praise the 
beauties of nature. 

Maciel turned around. 

“It is a great advantage to live in the country in these 
fearful times. At least one can enjoy the peacefulness 
of the country and the love of one’s family. For how 
long, I don’t know . . . The climate . . . The pest 
has seized the miserable body of the nation. . . The 
family is being gradually destroyed by the imperious 
forces of vice.” 

He stopped, and as if resuming all his disappointments 
and all his anxieties, murmured with discouragement : 

“My only wish is to get out of here, to exile myself, 
to leave the country and go with my people to live in 
some corner of Europe . . . Europe! . . . Europe! 
Yes, at least until the crisis is over. : 

And when he was being carried away by his innermost 
feelings, Maciel restrained himself, became suddenly 
silent, and looked at the foreigner with his eyes red and 
wet with tears. Milkau spoke to him very kindly and 
his words fell fresh and soothing on the deserted fields 
of the Brazilian’s heart. 

“T don’t wish in the least to contradict your words, 
but remember that there is no country without its dis- 
advantages. The best of it is that nothing is fixed and 
everlasting; all is transient, things are always under- 
going a crisis, trying incessantly new ways of existing. 
Besides, the terror we experience at present day happen- 
ings, is, to a certain extent, a matter of perspective 


204 CANAAN 


When we witness present events, everything appears 
great or ridiculous, terrible and formidable; everything 
seems to be going to an end in unavoidable degradation ; 
but in the future, they diminish with the distance, appear 
normal and regular and we begin to praise them as 
ingenious and admirable expressions of the best times, 
which are always old times. Will you allow me to make 
a comparison? It is as if we were at sea, amidst the 
waves and the winds. The spectacle of the ocean fills 
our souls with terror, but after we have crossed it and 
we look at it from a distance, the undulation of the waves 
seems like a sweet smile.” 

Maciel smiled approvingly at the metaphor. 

“Very well,’ he said brightening up suddenly, “but 
here we have a real storm . 2 

“Tt is natural. It could not be otherwise. From what 
I have observed and meditated, I am firmly convinced 
that it is due to the original formation of the country. 
From the very first, there were conquerors and van- 
quished under the form of masters and slaves. For two 
centuries the latter attempted to overpower the former. 
All the revolutions of Brazilian history signify a struggle 
between classes; the ruled against the ruling. The 
Brazilian nation was for many years neither more nor 
less than a nominal expression for a conglomeration of 
separate races and castes. And that state of affairs 
would continue, were it not that the powerful and im- 
perious sensuality of the conquerors destroyed the 
barriers which separated them from the other races and 
formed that intermediate race of half-castes and 
mulattoes which is the link, the national tie, and which, 
increasing every day, has gradually gained possession of 


CANAAN 295 


their oppressors’ strongholds . . . And when the army 
ceased to be the apanage of the white man and was 
dominated by the half-castes, the revolution was nothing 
more than the revenge of the oppressed who founded 
institutions which, due to their gravitational force, were 
destined to abide for some time in harmony with the 
psychological forces that created them. That shock 
was absolutely necessary to bring about what other 
means had not been able to accomplish for centuries: 
the formation of a nationality . . .” 

“Great !”’ exclaimed Maciel enthusiastically. “Therein 
lies the explanation of the triumph and prestige of our 
own Maracaja.” 

“He is the representative of that class,” said Milkau, 
laughing. 

“I know very well that he is all that,” said the judge. 
“Tt was necessary that out of our conflicting races there 
should emerge a half caste type which, adapting itself to 
its surroundings and possessing the average qualities of 
the other peoples, should vanquish and eliminate them all. 
That’s right-. . . And we must bear in mind that 
Pantoja is not an isolated case. Those who tend to 
govern us more acceptably, and with greater success than 
any others, belong to the same mulatto type. In fact, 
Brazil belongs to them. . . ” 

Paul Maciel paused for a moment and then, looking at 
his long, white hands, continued as he smiled ironically : 

“There is no doubt about it. . . If I had a few drops 
of African blood, I would certainly not be here grum- 
bling . . . I would be perfectly satisfied with the 
country . . . Pantoja, Brederodes . . . are they not 
progressing steadily and surely? . . . Are they not the 


296 CANAAN 


bosses of the country? . . . Why was I not born a 
miulatton 2025/26" 

The little world of the colony appeared in Milkau’s 
mind as the lawyer gave this clear resumé of the whole 
country. All the natives that had any power there came 
invariably from the fusion of the races, while that young 
man, with finer intelligence, with greater and more 
refined sensibility, was vanquished, annihilated by the 
others. Was he right? Would everything have been 
right with him if he had had that drop of negro blood? 

“You see, my friend, it is no use,” said Maciel, in a 
casual manner. “There is no possible salvation for us. 
The race is incapable of being civilized . . . ” 

“Oh, no! You can deduct that from my words. . . 
The crisis here has been caused by the different stages 
of civilization of the several classes of society. They 
would have to attain an even degree of culture, as indeed 
they are beginning to do now. ‘There are no races 
capable or incapable of civilization; history is nothing 
but a record of the fusion of races. Only stationary 
races, that is to say, races that do not become fused with 
others, be they white or black, always remain in a state 
of savagery. If there had not been a chance mixture of 
progressive peoples with backward ones, civilization 
would not have advanced in this world. And in Brazil, 
you may be sure, culture will flourish in the soil of the 
half-caste population, because there has been there that 
divine fusion which is the creative force. Nothing can 
hinder its progress, neither the pigment of the skin nor 
the coarseness of the hair. In a remote future, the 
period of the mulattoes will have passed, to be succeeded 
by the period of the new white people who have come in 





CANAAN 297 


the recent invasion, and they will accept with gratitude 
the patrimony of their half-caste predecessors, who will 
have built something, for nothing passes uselessly over 
thevearth =...” 

“The country will soon be white,” said Maciel with a 
sigh, “for it will be conquered by the armies of Europe.” 

Milkau said to the Brazilian: 

“That Europe towards which you people turn your 
longing and dying eyes and which you love with your 
tired souls, hungry for happiness, culture, art, and life, 
that Europe also suffers from the malady which disinte- 
grates and kills. Do not allow yourselves to be dazzled 
by her empty pomp, by the useless strength of her armies, 
by the perilous brilliance of her genius. Do not fear nor 
envy her. Like yourselves, she is deep in despair, eaten 
by hatred, devoured by separations. Even there the 
old and tremendous battle is being fought between 
masters and slaves . . . There is no rest for one’s 
conscience, no tranquility for happiness when by your 
side somebody is dying of hunger . . . It is a moribund 
society; it is not the dreamed-of world which comes to 
life every day—always young, always beautiful. And 
to maintain such ruins, the governing classes arm men 
against men and feed the wolfish appetite they inherited 
from their ancestors, with the pillage from other nations. 
All that appears on the surface of life is not related to 
the foundation of life . . . The laws, coming from 
tainted sources to kill fruitful freedom, do not express 
the new rights of man; they are the shield of govern- 
ments and of riches, and who says governments, says 
property, servitude, destruction. It is by such laws as 
these that peoples arrive at that excess of greatness 


” 


298 CANAAN 


which is but the beginning of decadence. Through them 
everything becomes topsy-turvy, mankind seems to have 
no roots in the earth and passes by as if it were going to 
die, without caring at all for those who come behind. 
It is shaky, restless; it is at that critical moment when 
it does not possess the posthumous, the avenging justice 
which in the past struck terror into the minds of men, 
and does not practice that marvellous justice which 
to-morrow shall give every one his due. 

“Nothing is in tune with the times. The spirit which 
died, still animates the world feebly . . . The races 
ceased from being warlike, and still they arm themselves 
... The peoples gave up religion, and still they preserve 
the temples of the priests . . . Art does not reflect the 
contemporary life nor soul. Poetry turns towards the 
past, and its feeble, mean language is not the powerful 
and refulgent mirror which reflects the image of the new 
men. And through that languishing, falling world 
passes the sensual, morbid and perfidious poison which 
destroys the strength of men and perverts the kindness 
of women’s milk . . . Do not fear her, for she can’t 
enslave you; before she can rise against you, she'll tear 
herself to pieces. Before long, her armies will not be 
able to move, for like those carbonized figures from the 
past which are dug up from the earth, a breath of wind 
will blow them into dust, and this beneficent wind which 
invades everything, which overcomes everything, like the 
sacred breath of the divinities of the future, is formed by 
the redeeming forces of science, industry, art, intelli- 
gence, hatred, love and a thousand more agencies yet 
unknown, mysterious and holy . . . Already those who 
despise them are seizing their positions.” 


CANAAN 299 


“That is a great pity,” said Maciel, in an almost 
inaudible voice. 

“It is the first step towards an inestimable benefit. 
Let the army, the government, the judiciary, diplomacy, 
the centers of learning and all the other institutions 
which are bound to vanish, let them fall into the hands 
of those who think them instruments for evil, gross and 
ridiculous creations. Then the army will not move. . ” 

“And won’t the country where that happens first be 
conquered by the others?” inquired the young Brazilian. 

“Tf such a thing happens we must look upon it as a 
temporary and unimportant consequence which we 
should not mind in the least. The triumph of the 
conqueror in those inferior struggles will be momentary, 
for the resurrective forces communicate themselves 
invisibly through the men of our culture and lead to the 
same results in this planetary system in which Brazil, 
emerging from the original nebula, came to share our 
sacrifices, to undergo the same transformations and to 
dream the same dreams. . . ” 

When Milkau had gone, the judge, left alone, pondered 
over the wonderful vision of the world which was to be 
transfigured in its anxiety for new and more beautiful 
expressions of life . . . But in spite of the dazzling 
vision, the tribulations of the moment overcame him. 

“Everything crumbles around me. Men do not under- 
stand each other in this country, and very soon I shall be 
an utter stranger to everything here, having nothing in 
common with my own countrymen . . . There is only left 
peacefulness of my family, the love of my wife, which 
comforts me, and our child who makes us young again, 
while around us everything is going to wreck and ruin.” 


300 CANAAN 


Hearing no longer murmurs of conversation in her 
husband’s office, Paul Maciel’s wife came quietly in as 
was her wont every evening before supper. She was 
tall and thin and still very young. A _ sickly and 
diaphanous paleness, characteristic of Brazilian women, 
made her black eyes look large and bright. She sat 
down near her husband. Maciel, who was eternally 
fascinated by his wife, calmed down, and forgetting his 
tormenting thoughts, began to talk to her. Night came 
on, stretching her arms silently with mysterious tender- 
ness, and they fell into each other’s arms, lost in a chaste 
and subtle desire. 

It was not long before tiny, hurried steps awoke them 
from their dream and the dishevelled figure of a girl 
came into the room. Her cheeks were burning, her 
little nostrils quivered, her hair was dishevelled, and cold 
persipration bathed her forehead. She ran into her 
mother’s arms trembling and panting 

“Mamma!” she said. 

Her mother, surprised and worried, looking at her, 
though she could not see her in the darkness of the room, 
huddled her against her bosom. 

“Gloria! Gloria!” she exclaimed. 

Her husband seized the girl’s head and kissed 

“Calm yourselves!” 

He said these words in a manly tone which brought 
tears of relief to the mother’s eyes. Gloria buried her head 
in the sheltering bosom of her mother. The maid then 
came into the room and, full of excitement, she began to 
explain why the child was upset, telling them in a loud 
voice and with exaggerated gestures what had happened 
in the street. They were going along when a group ot 


CANAAN 301 


immigrant beggars accosted them asking for alms. Some 
xvomen of the gang stretched their bony hands to grab 
the jewels the child was wearing, and one of them, more 
daring than the others, kissed the girl while she was 
trying to pull off her bracelet. Her son tore off the 
ribbon from the girl’s hair and ran away laughing. The 
maid tried to defend Gloria, using her parasol for the 
purpose, but her efforts were met with impudent sneers 
and jeers. If it had not been for two men who were 
passing and interfered, they would have had a bad time 
of it. They had managed to get away followed by the 
curses of the gang. . 

As she was telling the story, the maid took the girl’s 
head in her hands and repeatedly kissed her eyes. Paul 
Maciel, in order to dispel her instinctive and unconquer- 
able fear of beggars, tried to make fun of their meeting 
and laughed at her cowardice. The girl looked at him 
questioningly. Her fear gave her just appreciation of 
the facts and made his words useless. 

They tried to amuse her and to draw her attention to 
pleasant things, for though only five years old, she 
possessed a precious and morbid imagination which 
affected her mind. Their inventive powers did not 
prove at that moment either happy or fertile. They 
lacked new ideas, they stumbled in their talk, they 
hesitated, and as a last resource they fell back on an 
argument that never fails: kisses. 

The great calmness of the twilight quieted their minds, 
and only the child trembled, now and then, clinging 
to her mother, who gathered her up in her bosom and 
embraced her passionately. 

“I’m afraid, mamma!” 


302 CANAAN 


She sobbed hysterically for a while and then fell into 
a broken sleep, clutching nervously her mother’s arms. 
She woke up from a nightmare with an .expression of 
terror and fatigue. She raised her head and looked at 
her parents with a faint and melancholy smile, expressing 
a rudimentary, unconscious anguish and the sadness of 
primitive and child souls. Her lips moved as if she 
were going to speak and her parents waited for her voice, 
suddenly relieved from their anxiety. 

“Ah!” exclaimed Gloria, ‘we also were like them, eh, 
mamma?” 

At first Maciel’s wife did not grasp the whole meaning 
of the girl’s thought, but it gradually dawned upon her 
and she stood petrified. Maciel fixed his sharp eyes on 
the child. 

“Ves, mamma, a long time ago, far away, in another 
land. We were in the street all the time. We slept in 
the street. You carried me when I could not walk. . . 
Papa used to beat me alot...” 

Her face was transfigured by the recollections and 
with her eyes fixed on the sky she seemed to be looking 
for the days of the past. 

“Do you remember when we didn’t have anything to 
eat and we had to go begging? You used to nip me to 
make me cry and you used to push me into the stores 
to ask for something toeat. . .” 

“Gloria,” said Maciel, “what nonsense are you talking? 
Don’t say those things . . . ” 

The girl turned her face towards him and remained 
quiet for a moment. There was a deep sigh and in a 
little while, as if she couldn’t help it, she began again: 

“Ah! how cold it was there. Here you don’t shiver, 


CANAAN 303 


and there is no snow. Why is that, mamma? . . . Do 
you remember the hat you grabbed from a little boy in 

the street and gave to me? Oh! how they ran after us, 

didn’t they, mamma? But we hid in that dark house 
and I stuck to the pretty hat...” 
“Gloria! Gloria!” was all the young woman could say. 
Paul Maciel got up excitedly, took the girl in his arms 
and showed her a picture which he hurriedly pulled from 

a drawer. 

“How pretty!” exclaimed the girl delightedly. “Give 
it to me, papa!” 

“T shall give it to you if you stop talking nonsense.” 

Gloria gave him a kiss. Could it be possible that her 
mind had gone back to the past? Maciel asked himself, 
and he placed the girl gently on the floor. The girl, 
however, did not pay much attention to the picture. She 
went back to her mother, who was sobbing. 

“Don’t cry, mamma. You have lots of money now 

. . Nobody beats you now . . . Eh, papa?” 

It was getting very dark. The maid was long in 
bringing the lamp. In the complete quietude of the 
house, amidst the shadows which were obliterating the 
last rays of light, the figure and the words of Gloria, 
were like the image and the voice of a horrible past 
appearing suddenly to spoil their happiness. And yet, 
Maciel felt an absurd and subtle intellectual pleasure in 
these gloomy visions of the child. 

“You were not always as you are now, mamma 
beautiful and kind to me. I didn’t have a doll, or a 
maid, or a bed even . ... I was always dirty. Wasn't 
I? You didn’t have a pretty dress, or money, or rings 
. » . You had a bracelet which that young fellow gave 


304 CANAAN ‘ 


you. . . Papa was mad at you and he gave you a 
terrible beating, didn’t he, mamma?.. . ” 

The poor woman felt upset and fancied her husband’s 
eyes were moist with tears. 

“The young fellow. slept with us when papa was 
arrested by the soldiers. He gave me money and said 
that he was my father, but I wanted my own papa... 
Papa came back . . . you told him that he was a fool 
. . . but that woman told him everything... ” 

Paul raised his arms with an effort as does a man who 
tries to break away his fetters, and he made signs to 
silence the accursed and innocent little mouth, but all in 
vain. 

“Mamma also bit a little girl’s hand in the street, to 
pull away her ring. I saw it. Did you think I had not 
seen it? Now people don’t bite other people. Papa, 
what happened to that man you wanted to kill with that 
long ‘knite rs... 

Suddenly she turned towards her mother. 

“May I wear my pink dress to-morrow when I go out 
for a walk? Shall I take my big doll, Dulce? Shall 

The servant came into the room with a lighted lamp, 
murmuring some excuses for the delay. 

“Emily, Emily, to-morrow . . . ” shouted Gloria, 
running after her. 

Paul Maciel’s wife threw her arms round his neck 
and hung on to him. Clasped in each other’s arms, awe- 
struck at the words of the child, they stood watching her 
as she ran after the servant. Their loving charity was 
gathering the bitter fruits of the land of Canaan. 
Despairing of ever having any children, they had opened 


————————_————————— KK TETLllltttttt~”~”~— 


CANAAN S, 
their hearts two years before to the little girl, who was 
the daughter of some Spanish immigrants. And now, 
from the gloomy and inexorable brain cells of the child 


rose, like punishment, a life, a past that did not belong 
to them. 


CHAPTER XI: 


ENTZ wandered along the banks of Doce river 
L and his mind tormented by solitude, felt op- 
pressed by the unalterable calmness of the earth. 
Above him stretched the clear, luminous sky; below 
was a dead world scorched by the sun. He wandered 
about, lonely and lost, and his eyes were attracted 
by the only thing that gave signs of life, by the 
murmuring waters of the river that glided along like a 
dying soul. The implacable beauty of the silence excited 
him and he cursed the impassibility of the universe which 
did not move nor tremble under the feet of the superman. 
In that conspiracy of silence, solitude, light, splendor 
and magnificence, the mind of man became delirious. 
And in that delirium, the origin of things vanished from 
the memory, the past had never existed. The beautiful 
forms of things, the softly moving waters, the silent and 
motionless trees, the sky, the sun, the hills, the clouds, 
everything was the expression of lives that have been 
extinguished, of beings that moved and had a soul and 
which now were forming a wonderful setting for the 
awakening of the first man. The new existence of the 
new forms was about to begin. . . 

Lentz wondered at the surroundings in which his 
primitive eyes were opening. But the tedium of finding 
himself alone and wandering discouraged him, and 
his immortal and infinite spirit went back to immemorial 


[306] 


—————————————— 








CANAAN 307 


times. He shivered with sadness. And so, in that 
silent region, the desire to reproduce himself seized 
the strong man. The principle of life, the will to 
procreate, arose in him simple and overpowering. Lentz 
wished that his most intimate and essential forces should 
scatter themselves, divide themselves up into minute 
particles, like atoms of light that would mysteriously 
fertilize everything. Anxiously, restlessly, painfully he 
raved . . . and a perverse illusion unfolded to him his 
own image multiplied in a myriad bodies, handsome and 
noble like the children of a god. He admired ecstatically 
the eyes, the hair, the limbs, the glorious traits of his 
own race in which was concentrated the whole beauty 
and strength of the universe . . . And everything was 
beautiful, and everything was good, because everything 
was himself. 

It was not long before he became tired of the unbear- 
able monotony of seeing himself everywhere. In his 
Gespair, he wanted to go back to chaos, to destroy every- 
thing, to create new beings who would not be his own 
image, who would not be divine, who would moan and 
suffer and be human. The creator struggled with his 
own spirit, and his own spirit, with an unconquerable 
and diabolical force, vanquished him, creating always 
the same form, always himself. Himself . . . And the 
forms that came from the lonely and disdainful force 
followed him continually, tirelessly, From the summit of 
a hill where he had wandered, he ran, fleeing from the 
multitude of phantoms that followed him lovingly, like 
slaves, and which were himself, always himself . 

He went to the river side seeking salvation, with a queer 
desire to destroy himself, to find relief . . . and he 


308 CANAAN 


suddenly stopped. In the crystal of the waters, his own 
image appeared, ready to follow him even in death. . . 

During the daytime, delirium followed him in a 
thousand terrible forms, burning his feeble, lonely soul. 
In the quiet of the night, when the terrors of the new 
life did not torture him, he wandered through the barren 
solitude of his mind, moaning cowardly. He begged for 
the gloomy company of the wind, and the wind did not 
answer his satanic summons. He tried in vain to revive 
with his ardent eyes the things that were sinking into 
death. The moon turned towards him its livid, 
cadaverous face... . 

A feeling of pity prompted Milkau to return to the 
settlement. During all that time he had not forgotten 
his companion, and when there was a halt in the trial, he 
went back to Doce river. It was in the early morning 
that he entered the yard, and when he saw the abandoned 
garden invaded by the ever watching jungle that always 
takes advantage of man’s carelessness, he guessed every- 
thing. The house was open, and lying on the floor 
Lentz slept heavily. 

They stayed together in the colony until the following 
day. Milkau’s company raised Lentz’ spirits and com- 
forted him. And now, seized by an uncontrollable fear 
of solitude, he allowed himself to be guided by the 
universal instinct for comradeship and grew strongly 
attached to Milkau, who called him away to Cachoeiro 
to defend and console the suffering girl. A ray of light 
from Mary’s martyrdom reached Lentz, and obeying that 
unconscious power against which he had struggled for 
so long, he bent down his head and followed his friend. 

Along the road everything came to life, the wind, the 








— — 





CANAAN 309 


birds, the trees, all singing in their turn; and Lentz, 
recapitulating the short history of his disillusionment, 
said to himself: 

“Ah! how I regret my audacious dreams, my old 
ambitions and desires . . . All that he and I wanted to 
have accomplished is absolutely nothing. We find in our 
road wretched and powerful pain, and it dominates and 
transforms us . a 

“All the evil in him was the work of his imagination,” 
reflected Milkau, looking at him with tender eyes. “But 
man is not governed by ideas; he is governed by feelings. 
The force of our individuality is nothing in comparison 
with the forces accumulated in life. What can one man 
do against the impetuous stream formed by the first 
tears, descending from the origins of the world, increas- 
ing in volume, flooding everything, destroying everything, 
until some day they will reach a high water mark of 
kindness and love? How can insignificant and useless 
man arrest the power or deviate the current of piety and 
sympathy °” 

When they arrived at Cachoeiro they went immediately 
to the jail. During Milkau’s absence Mary had become 
acquainted with a new kind of torture, that caused by 
sexual persecution. The whiteness of her skin, the 
strange form of a woman of another race, had excited 
the black soldiers. At first the wretched aspect of 
misfortune had overawed them and she was protected by 
a magic circle of respect. Gradually, however, their 
common life with the girl rendered them insensible to 
her misfortune, and a violent desire to possess her seized 
them. They tried to seduce her, communicating to her 
instinctively their own lasciviousness, but when they saw 


310 CANAAN 


her obstinately refuse their advances and break an old 
custom of the prison, where all the women prisoners 
became the mistresses of their guardians, they were 
enraged and attempted to subdue her by means of terror, 
cruelty and force. Her nights were agitated, trying to 
avoid violation by these drunken, lecherous soldiers. She 
struggled in their arms and escaped, thanks to the 
quarrels which arose between the assailants, or to the 
cries she raised, at sound of which the soldiers ran away 
frightened. In the day time they revenged themselves 
for the struggles of the night by making her work for 
them like a slave, by striking her and denying her food. 
And Milkau, in the dim light of the prison, noticed the 
terrible ravages caused by wretchedness in the body of 
the girl. He did not deceive himself as to the exact 
condition of the poor victim, although she smiled at him, 
making an effort to efface the terrible history of her 
martyrdom that was indelibly written in her hungry eyes, 
her emaciated cheeks, her skeleton hands and her sunken 
chest . . . Milkau felt a violent desire to seize her and 
take her away, far away, to some place where beasts 
would not have the shape of men. . 

Lentz was silent all the time they were in the prison. 
For the first time in his life he had been in a jail rubbing 
elbows with criminals and reprobates. His old, aristo- 
cratic soul shivered with nausea, and his overbearing and 
powerful mind, which had not become entirely subdued, 
rebelled at the contact with misery and tried to free itself 
from pity and charity and soar again in the heights of 
silence and power. But it was too late; the claw of pity 
held him down in this world, which thus became 
fertilized by his share of suffering. 


i 


CANAAN 318 


When they left the jail, out in the street, Milkau 


“heard, like an echo of his own thoughts, the words: 


“Poor woman! How sad life is!” 

The new Lentz was speaking. 

The two friends separated, deeply moved by the girl’s 
tragedy. While Lentz returned to the filthy boarding 
house at Cachoeiro, Milkau wandered at random. His 
walk led him to the Queimado, the abandoned region 
where the old native culture formerly had flourished, 
and which he had crossed in the hopeful day when he 
arrived at the colony. 

He went into the exhausted, dead fields. On the very 
ground which he trod could be seen the marks left by a 
generation vanquished and gone... All that had once 
been alive there, had entirely disappeared . . . Nothing 
was left but the remains of shapeless human habitations 
which stood petrified, painfully naked, with a few hardy 
and courageous creepers attempting to hide the shame of 
the mutilated ruins. In the lower hills, large stones like 
monstrous masks looked silently at the land beyond and 
at high and fertile mountains where the invaders were 
satisfying their hunger . . . Lost in the wide landscape, 
the Santa Maria, free from the rocks which had made it 
leap with life and happiness, flowed slowly, moaning 
with sadness . . . Everything was languid and empty, 
open and deserted . . . In a corner of a field a group of 
trees were slowly dying away. They belonged to other 
times and were the only life left there . . . Corpses of 
trees lay mouldering into dust, and others, still upright, 
were clothed in purple and gold by a glorious transfor- 
mation. The impatient sun plunged into the loving arms 
of the future land and showed the Past its red, cold, 


312 CANAAN 


dead face . . . Sheltered from the winds, some goats, 
huddled against their kids, grazed lazily among the ruins 
. . . Flocks of birds passed through the pale sky seeking 


a’ Shelter for the might’. . . At such an)homg) am ihe 
theatre of Anguish, Milkau meditated: 
“No, sweet Sadness! I am not fleeing from you! 


You have revealed to me my own self. You have 
explained to me the energy and the strength of my 
thought. I recline upon you as if you were an unfathom- 
able and voluptuous abyss. You attract me and I 
stretch my arms to you with that same sorrowful and 
invincible love with which sleep loves the past and death 
loves life. Before I knew you, a perfidious illusion 
numbed my senses and my frivolous existence was but 
the lugubrious march of a silent innocent along a road 
of sorrow. Even at that moment, I did not seek you, 
O, dying sun! In my face was stamped a fatiguing 
smile which kept me away from those men whose eternal 
happiness is death . . . But you, Sadness, were not far 
away. You sat down at my doorstep in an attitude of 
resignation and silence. And how you waited! One 
day, happiness, tired at last, disappeared and then struck 
for me the hour of peace and quiet. You came in. And 
how from the very first I loved the nobility of your 
figure! O Melancholy! my soul is the dwelling where 
you reign so sweetly!” 

Milkau continued walking in the light of the last rays 
of the sun. There were no more flocks of birds in the 
sky. The sun had disappeared completely under the 
horizon. The breeze had died down . . . The feeble 
voice of the waterfall grew weaker and weaker. And 
Milkau meditated: 


CANAAN 313 


» “Pain is kind, for it awakens in us our dead conscience. 
Pain is beautiful because it unites men. It is the 
unbreakable bond of universal solidarity. Pain is fertile, 
because it is the source of our development, the eternal 
creator of poetry, the force of art. Pain is religious, 
because it perfects us and explains to us our innate 
weaknesses. 

“Sadness! you make me go down to the deepest roots 
of my mind. Through you I understand the anguish of 
life. Through you, who are the guide of human 
suffering, through you I make universal pain my own 
pain. Let not my face again be disfigured by the 
grimace of a tired and murderous smile. Give me your 
serenity, your serious and noble figure . . . Sadness, do 
not forsake me . . . Let not my mind be a prey to vain 
joy. Lean over me; cover me with your protecting 
veil . . . Lead me, oh most kind! to other men. . . 
Benevolent Sadness! Melancholy !” 


CHAPTER XII, 


{4 ARY!” 
The poor wretch trembled, and with her 


stiff, outstretched hands she pushed away 
the face that was leaning over her. In the torture of 
the nightmare, it seemed to her that thick, red, thirsty 
lips were seeking her own mouth... 

“Mary, itisI... ” said Milkau. 

She opened her eyes and remained dazzled. Her 
hand, now soft and relaxed, felt around nervously to 
make sure that the strange and sudden apparition was 
indeed her friend. Milkau felt her light, childish touch 
on his beard as if it had been a caress. . . 

“Come on! Get up... ” he said in a low firm voice, 
and pushed her hand gently aside. 

Mary stood up and, taking his hand, she followed 
Milkau through the gloomy house. In the corridor they 
could see in the pale light of the night coming through 
the door—open, as usual—the figure of a soldier sleeping 
in a brutal attitude, like a coarse and archaic figure. The 
prisoner, alarmed at the sight, wanted to go back. 
Milkau seized her hands forcibly, and strong and calm, 
he passed with her by the sentry and took her into the 
night and freedom. 

Outside, the subtle air that penetrated her warm, 
sleepy flesh, the crystalline sky, the brilliance of the 
stars and the immensity of space gave the fugitive a 


[314] 


eee a ee 


CANAAN 315 


edelicious fainting feeling; she collapsed and fell into 
Milkau’s arms, so that he had to drag her along. 

Arm in arm they walked through the quiet, sleepy city. 
They went along slowly; her step was vacillating and her 
feet, numbed by her long confinement, stumbled on_the 
loose stones of the street. An awesome silence filled her 
mind with the old fear, which is never extinguished. 
Now and again sleepy dogs woke up and barked 
furiously as the two figures went by. Then every- 
thing went back to the threatening silence which was 
brusquely broken by the voices of the pursuers coming 
from the alarmed houses . . . But they only could hear 
the eternal and monotonous screech of the water-fall. 
With redoubled caution they went along watching with 
eyes dilated by the darkness, the confused and sinister 
forms around them. Mary was trembling with fear, and 
Milkau whispered into her ear: 

“Let us flee for ever from all that persecutes you. Let 
us go far away, to other men, to another land where 
kindness will flow spontaneously .and abundantly, as the 


waters over the face of the earth, Come... . we will 
climb those mountains of hope. Then rest in perpetual 
apeimess.. .\.(Come.. . Come ..; . run ‘3 


They left the city, and now, without fear ae acne it, 
they began happily to ascend the mountain. 

As they ascended, they lost sight of Cachoeiro, away 
at their feet, covered by the vaporous, greyish cloak of 
the fog over which the pale light of the night shone with 
the vague phosphorescence of a nebula. . And under that 
cloak they could discern fantastic, colossal, gigantic 
beings of shapes never dreamt of before . . . The Santa 
Maria, still and livid, cut like a smoking sword the plain 


316 CANAAN 


of Queimado, where the low hills appeared like mutilated 
corpses of some ancient heroes . . . Then they saw 
nothing. They continued climbing and entered the 
forest. Mary clung tightly to Milkau. There was a 
mournful murmur caused by the breeze among the trees 
of the forest. They went on fearfully, fixing their eyes 
in the impenetrable darkness whence came the mysterious 
clamor of suffering from the punished trees. And the 
implacable wind continued to blow, making them groan 
mournfully . . . Here and there, in the density of the 
darkness, a shaft of light came from above like a column 
raised from the ground to the sky, piercing the waving 
roof of the forest . . . Huddling to each other, breathing 
the air heavily laden with the heady and disturbing 
perfume of the nocturnal flowers, they walked swiftly 
along. Milkau repeated in his companion’s ear his 
alluring appeal. 

“It is happiness I promise you. She belongs to the 
earth, and we are bound to find her . . . When day 
comes we shall find other men, another world, and there 

. there we shall find happiness . . . Come... 
CONTE wees) 

Thus he dispelled her terror, and Mary gained courage 
at hearing in his caressing voice the magic chorus of her 
betrothal with Happiness. They ascended swiftly, 
SWiitly >. <> 

The road left the darkness of the forest and came out 
upon the open heights. It was stony and narrow and 
edged a precipice. Their steps slowed down. They 
continued to ascend cautiously, panting. Milkau’s eyes 
fathomed the abyss and were fascinated by the silvery 
ribbon of the river . . . Mary could hardly walk, for she 








te 


CANAAN 317 


qwas tired and her feet were sore, and she hung on to 
Milkau’s arm, leaning heavily on him and warming his 
face with her feverish breath. They dragged themselves 
together towards the summit. The road was always 
at the edge of the precipices, and to the fugitives 
came, like an infernal hubbub away down in the bottom 
of the frightful valley, the roar of the Santa Maria. The 
valley became narrower and narrower until the two sides 
seemed to merge into each other in the black steep rocks, 
away in the horizon. Milkau lost courage at finding 
himself in the stony solitude. He was bathed in cold 
sweat, and his stiff tired body seemed to crumble down; 
and he fell and rolled towards the abyss and towards 
death .. . Mary, seized by sudden terror, seemed to gain 
some strange energy and held him back, dragging him 
towards the side of the mountain. He looked at her with 
wandering eyes, seized her by the waist and with a devil- 
ish and ferocious smile stuttered: 

“There is nothing left . . . nothing left . . . Only, 
Oftive: - . Geath.. . .”’ 

Mary struggled to disentangle herself from the power- 
ful arms of the man and they fell on the ground together, 
fighting with each other in their madness . . The warmth 
from the woman’s body, long forgotten, set Milkau’s blood 
on fire, and in the struggle he squeezed her passionately 
against himself, kissing her feverishly. Mary embraced 
him closely in a sudden wakening of her womanhood 

. But the satanic temptation of death proved more 
powerful . . . The Santa Maria howled below, sombre 
and frightful . . . Milkau stood up with one jump, 
lifted the woman from the ground and advanced to the 
abyss . . . and then stopped. Her arms, tightly clasped 


318 CANAAN 


around him, held him back. For a long time they 
struggled at the edge of the precipice, but his strength, 
which desired to drag her to death, had to give in to 
hers, which struggled for life . . . Milkau weakened at 
last and dropped down on the ground, exhausted, 
overcome, and Mary freed herself from his arms. 
Finding herself free, she began to run along the stony 
path, livid, maddened with terror. Milkau, recovering 
himself, followed her and the two shadows moved 
through the fog along the edge of the precipice. . . 
They soon reached the summit and their astonished eyes 
gazed at the open fields towards which the road 
descended. Milkau’s anguish vanished at the sight of 
the plain; the desperate and alluring roars of the river 
were dying behind; the black and awful abyss had dis- 
appeared as if it had been a nightmare, and now they 
were descending into the smooth fields softly lighted by 
the marvelous, clear night. They ran, they ran. . . 
Behind her Mary could hear Milkau’s voice vibrating 
like the modulation of a hymn... 

Qn :. . On...’ Don’t stop. .- seer 
Canaan! Canaan!” But the plain extended into 
the bosom of the night and lost itself in the sky. Milkau 
did not know whither they were going: the unknown 
attracted them with the powerful and magnetic force of 
Illusion. He began to feel the anguishing sensation of a 
race to the Infinite. . . 

“Canaan! Canaan! . . . ” he murmured, pleading with 
Night in his thoughts to show him the road to the 
Promised Land. 

And all was silence and mystery .. . They ran. . . 
they ran. . . And the world seemed to have no end, 


— = Ss 








CANAAN 319 


,and the land of Love was sunk in an impenetrable fog 

. And Milkau, with unspeakable torture, began te 

see that nothing had changed; for hours and hours they 

had run and still nothing changed, nothing new appeared 
Semuney tan |... they ran . . . 

But before him there was a charming vision. It was 
Mary transfigured. The magic power of Fancy had trans- 
formed her and given her new life; the woman had 
covered with new flesh the bones she had borne as 
prisoner and martyr; new blood flowed victoriously 
through her arteries, setting them afire; her hair grew 
like a golden forest, spreading out and covering the 
world amorously; her eyes lighted the way, and Milkau, 
enveloped by that glorious light, followed ecstatically the 
shadow that was leading him on . . . They ran. . 
they ran . . . And everything was immutable in the 
night. The fantastic figure kept ahead of him, swift and 
intangible, and he followed it in vain, unable to reach it, 
afraid that his voice might dispel the Illusion which he 


loved . . . “Canaan! Canaan!” he begged in his heart 
as the end of his martyrdom . . . But the longed-for 
land never appeared . . . Never... They ran... 
they ran... 


The deceitful night retreated to its lair. The world 
was tired of its monotonous sameness. Milkau 
welcomed with a sigh of hope the delicious transition .. . 
At last Canaan was going to be revealed. The new light 

came and spread its rays over the plain. Milkau saw 
4 that it was empty, deserted, that the new men had not 
: appeared there yet. With his discouraged hands he 
touched the Vision that was leading him. At the human 
contact, it stood still—and Mary turned toward him her 





320 CANAAN 


old emaciated face, the same dull eyes, the same withered 
mouth, the same martyr’s figure. 

Seeing her thus, in her pitiful reality, he said: 

“Don’t tire yourself in vain. . . Don't run. . . It is 
useless . . . The Promised Land which I was going to 
show you and which I was anxiously seeking, is not there 
at all . . . It does not exist yet. Let us stop here and 
wait for it to come with the blood of redeemed genera- 
tions. Don’t lose heart. Let us be faithful to the sweet 
illusion of the Mirage. He who lives an Ideal has a 
mortgage on Eternity . . . Each one of us, all of us, 
express the creative force of a utopia, and it is 
through ourselves, as if through a point of transition, 
that pain will make its sorrowful journey. Let us purify 
our bodies, we who live on the original evil, which is 
Violence . . . What charms most in life is the idea of 
perpetuity. We shall continue, extend our personalities 
infinitely and live for ages and ages in the souls of our 
descendants . . . Let us make of it the sacred vessel of 
our kindness, where we shall deposit all that is pure, holy 
and divine. Let us approach each other sweetly. All 
the evil is in Force, and Love alone can lead mankind . . 

‘All that you see, all the sacrifices, all the agonies, all 
the revolts, all the martyrdoms, are but different forms 
of wandering Freedom. And those desperate, anguish- 
ing expressions which disappear in the course of time, 
die only temporarily, awaiting the hour of resurrection 

. . I don’t know whether all life has an indestructible, 
eternal rhythm or whether it is shapeless and transitory 
. . . My eyes cannot reach the limits of the Infinite, my 
sight is limited to what surrounds you . . . But I tell 
you, if this is going to end so that the cycle of existence 








CANAAN 321 


may be repeated again elsewhere, or if some day we will 
be extinguished with the last wave of heat coming from 
the maternal bosom of the earth, or if we be smashed to 
pieces with it in the Universe and be scattered like dust 
on the roads of the heavens, let us not separate from 
each other in this attitude of hatred . . . I entreat you, 
you and your innumerable descendants, let us give up 
our destroying hatreds, let us reconcile ourselves with 
each other before the coming of Death... ” 


THE END. 














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